GTEC acted unlawfully in Mass Derecognition of Costa Rican University Degrees-High Court

The High Court, Adenta, has dealt a significant blow to the country's tertiary education regulator, GTEC, ruling that a sweeping directive which stripped dozens of academics of their doctoral qualifications was unlawful, irrational, and void.

In a judgement delivered on May 28, 2026 Justice Kwame Gyamfi Osei quashed a November 5, 2025 letter issued by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) that had declared all degrees awarded by the Universidad Empresarial de Costa Rica (UNEM), also known as the Business University of Costa Rica, unrecognised and unusable for teaching, promotion, or career advancement within Ghana's tertiary education system.

The court found instead that the regulator cut corners, ignored its own procedural rules, and blindsided degree holders who had built careers on qualifications the commission had previously validated.

The 23 applicants, an array of doctors, professors, and engineers holding senior positions across Ghana's higher education and industry landscape, obtained their doctoral qualifications from UNEM between 2017 and 2023. The degrees were used to secure appointments, promotions, and academic tenure at universities and public institutions across the country.

Their world changed abruptly when GTEC issued its November 5 letter, which declared that UNEM certificates including those obtained through online, distance, or joint degree arrangements "are not recognized by the Commission and cannot be used for teaching, appointment, or career progression" within Ghana's tertiary education system. The letter stated it superseded all previous communications on UNEM's status.

The applicants argued they were given no warning, no hearing, and no opportunity to respond before a decision that effectively rendered years of academic work worthless.

The court's judgement traces a sequence of regulatory missteps that preceded the fateful November letter.

The first and most fundamental issue Justice Gyamfi Osei addressed was whether GTEC had been required to afford the applicants a hearing before issuing a directive that directly nullified their doctoral qualifications.

The court found the answer was clearly yes. The judge noted that the November 5 letter had effectively "rendered their certificates useless, whether they are in academia or not," and that since the letter directly affected the applicants, "they ought to have been given the opportunity to defend themselves before the derecognition of their certificates."

The court also found independently unlawful the retrospective character of GTEC's directive, its purported effect of rendering degrees already awarded and previously recognised suddenly invalid.

The court noted that Regulation 24 of L.I. 1984 requires that before a registration is suspended or revoked, the institution must be given at least six months' written notice to rectify the breach. The court found no evidence that GTEC had ever issued such a notice to OAA Consulting Limited before revoking its registration.

Further, the revocation had not been published in the Gazette as required by law,  a step the court described as essential to give legal validity and enforceability to revocations. GTEC had dismissed the gazette requirement as a procedural formality, but the judge rejected that characterization: "Clearly the revocation was not done according to law."

On the basis of its findings, the court declared, amongst others that, GTEC's November 5, 2025 directive unlawful and in breach of Regulation 14 of L.I. 1984. It declared the retrospective derecognition of all UNEM qualifications ultra vires, irrational, and void. It declared the purported revocation of OAA's registration procedurally improper, unlawful, and void for failure to comply with Regulations 24(3), 24(4), and 24(5) of L.I. 1984.

Critically, the court ordered GTEC and all tertiary institutions that had implemented the directive to reverse, set aside, and withdraw all decisions adversely affecting UNEM degrees — including decisions on appointments, promotions, confirmations, and career progression — and to recognise such degrees without reliance on the quashed directive.

The court also restrained GTEC and any institution acting on its directive from giving effect to the November 5 letter insofar as it relates to UNEM qualifications obtained before October 20, 2025.