A legal dispute is brewing between Dr. Grace Ayensu Danquah and the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), with her lawyers accusing the Commission of bias, overreach, and procedural lapses in its review of her academic credentials.
In a strongly worded letter dated August 13 and addressed to GTEC’s Director General, Prof. Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai, Dr. Danquah’s legal counsel, led by David K. Ametefe, described the Commission’s conduct as “abrasive, unnecessarily combative, and disparaging.”
The lawyers contend that GTEC failed to act with the professionalism and neutrality expected of a regulatory body established under the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023). At the center of the disagreement is GTEC’s assessment of Dr. Danquah’s right to use the academic title Professor.
According to her legal team, the Commission’s findings were unfounded, lacked transparency, and unfairly damaged her reputation. “The assessment appears to have been carried out without transparency, and without clear indication of the statutory or regulatory framework relied upon,” the letter argued, adding that the process seemed to be influenced by “subjective or extraneous considerations.”
The lawyers also criticized GTEC for sharing its letters with high-level offices such as Parliament and the Presidency, describing the move as “wholly improper and potentially defamatory.” They questioned why a purely academic matter was tied to her political service as a Member of Parliament and former Deputy Minister.
“Your most recent letter was addressed directly to the Chief of Staff rather than to our client, a step that is both procedurally irregular and suggestive of an attempt to escalate a matter of academic interpretation into a political controversy,” the lawyers added.
They further insisted that GTEC has no authority to redefine or undermine academic titles granted by foreign institutions. The Commission’s reported view—that only tenure-track appointments warrant the use of “Professor”—was described as erroneous and inconsistent with international academic practice.
Citing frameworks such as the UNESCO Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications and the Lisbon Recognition Convention, her lawyers maintained that academic titles must be respected as conferred, unless substantial differences are proven.
They warned that GTEC’s actions risked reducing it to “an ad hoc, personality-driven exercise, rather than one grounded in law, evidence, and internationally recognised norms.”
Dr. Danquah’s legal team has therefore demanded that GTEC disclose the process behind its conclusions, clarify its legal authority, and confirm whether their client had an opportunity to respond before the correspondence was circulated. They also want information on available appeal mechanisms.
Failure to address these concerns within 14 days, the lawyers cautioned, would leave their client with no option but to seek legal remedies, including court orders of certiorari and mandamus, as well as declarations to protect her reputation.
The letter has also been copied to the Chief of Staff, the Minister of Health, the Clerk of Parliament, and the Chairman of the GTEC Board, because, according to her lawyers, the Commission had already involved them in what should have been a strictly academic matter handled with discretion.
