A group identifying as the Concerned PhD Students of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) has challenged recent claims by the institute’s Rector, Prof Samuel Kwaku Bonsu, over the causes of prolonged delays in their PhD programme completion.
According to the group, what was designed as a three-year doctoral programme has stretched to seven to ten years for many students, an outcome they attribute to administrative inefficiencies rather than the “quality assurance” rationale cited by the Rector.
The students allege that Prof Bonsu unilaterally abolished the Graduate School, a key coordinating body for postgraduate programmes, contrary to directives from both the GIMPA Governing Council and the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), which mandates all universities with graduate programmes to maintain such a structure. They further claim that the abolition stemmed from personal differences rather than institutional reform.
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They also accuse the Rector of creating redundant bureaucratic structures, including a PhD Committee and several ad hoc panels, which duplicated existing roles and re-examined already vetted theses. The group says these moves have “hampered student progress” and introduced unnecessary administrative bottlenecks.
Following a Governing Council directive to dissolve the ad hoc committees, the students allege that a new process known as the “Gatekeeper mechanism” was established under the Deputy Rector’s office. This system, which requires additional vetting and pre-viva clearances, is said to add an average of three years to thesis processing time.
A major point of contention also lies in graduation statistics. While Prof Bonsu reportedly claims that 35 students have completed the PhD programme, the group insists that only 17 students from the School of Public Service and Governance have graduated since 2014. They maintain that dropouts now outnumber graduates, signalling deeper systemic failures.
Rejecting the Rector’s justification, the group said:
“We are disappointed at the attempt to justify the difficulties confronting the PhD programme under the guise of quality assurance, in a manner that undermines faculty members and supervisors.”
Describing themselves as “mature individuals with decades of professional experience,” the students said they “reject any attempt to frustrate students or use them as collateral in administrative disputes.”
The group has called on stakeholders, including faculty, the Governing Council, alumni, and the wider public, to intervene to safeguard GIMPA’s integrity and ensure fair academic treatment.
In a direct challenge to the Rector, the students posed four questions:
- How long did it take you personally to complete your PhD degree?
- As Rector, are you satisfied that out of over 100 students admitted, only 17 have graduated?
- Are you concerned that under your leadership, GIMPA risks becoming a ghost community?
- Has GIMPA ever been in the news for such negative reasons before now?
