More Management Schools Spring Up In Tamale

The frequent ordeal that most prospective business management executives face when they have to travel to the Southern part of the country to study various management courses, which are now the obvious benchmarks that most corporate institutions use in recruiting their staff, would soon be over.

Senior High School leavers and workers in Northern Ghana, now have many options to choose from the numerous professional management courses being introduced by newly established management schools in the Tamale Metropolis.

In the last three years, more than five schools with the capacity to teach professional management courses such as Marketing, Human Resource Development, Accounting, Project Management, Sales and Marketing, Public Relations, Journalism, Commercial Management, and among others, have sprung up in the city.

Some of the schools which have braved the odds to run these excellent professional management courses which are not well known to many people in the North include, Shareworld Development Institute, Academy of Business Management Studies, Abconworld Institute, Gate Management College, Excel College, School of Marketing and among others.

The courses being run are designed by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), London Centre of Marketing (LCM) and Institute of Commercial Management (ICM); all of which are United Kingdom (UK) based professional examination bodies as well as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) with approval from the National Accreditation Board.

For instance, Abconworld Institute runs courses such as Public Relations & Marketing, Human Resource Development & Marketing and Sales & Marketing Management and among others. Certificates such as Diploma, Higher Diploma, Professional Diploma and Graduate Diploma are grouped in order of levels ranging from level one to four. A student who completes any of the levels successfully within six months is awarded the certificate of that level.

At the School of Marketing, CIM qualifications comprise of Introductory Certificate in Marketing, Professional Certificate in Marketing, Professional Diploma in Marketing, Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing and Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing which one can obtain each qualification or certificate within six months.

Also, between six to twenty-four months of intensive learning through regular classes held mostly during working days and weekends in the evenings, a serious student who enroll to study an approved ICM course like Commercial Management, could come out with a Certificate, Diploma, Advance Diploma and Postgraduate Diploma Certificate; and getting a job is not as difficult as someone who had spent three or four years studying a similar course in any of the Polytechnics or Universities in Ghana.

Speaking to Savannahnews in an exclusive interview, the Director of Shareworld Development Institute, Samuel Addae, said holders of professional certificates were often hotcakes for employers.

This is because, as he explained, professional courses were well tailored and designed to equip students with the requisite expertise to enable them deal critically with the current global corporate problems that most employers are faced with.

Thus, students who graduate with a certificate in any of the professional courses, he asserted, were so analytical and have the ability to offer immediate solutions to the day-to-day problems that their employers in the public and private sector face.

For instance, Mr. Addae further explained that an Advance Diploma was equivalent to HND whereas Graduate Diploma Certificate was equivalent to a first degree in most Universities around the world. Adding, “These two certificates could afford one the opportunity to enroll in some universities in the UK and United States of America including Canada to do his/her second degree (Masters Degree program) without any difficulty”.

Besides, within the 24 months or two years someone could graduate with four certificates from different courses; because almost all these courses have up to part four or level four and they begin at the Certificate level and end at the Postgraduate Diploma Certificate Level, he explained.

So, instead of spending three or four years at the Polytechnic or University to get a single certificate in just one course, why not use that period to acquire four certificates in a similar course or different courses, Mr. Addae asked?

Checks on the website of Abconworld Institute by Savannahnews indicated that the school apart from giving course textbooks to students, also awarded scholarships worth Gh¢300.00 to some needy applicants to offset part of the course fees.

Also, entry requirements to any of the institutions is SSSCE/WASSCE, NOV/DEC private WASSCE, O and A Level certificate or any certificate from any recognized tertiary institution and ability to read and write English very well. There is no cut-off point regarding qualification to gain admission and fess ranged between US$200 dollars and US$1,500 dollars beginning from the level one to four or five.

Mr. Samuel Addae however cautioned the general public to be careful of some institutions that are out there advertising courses that they do not have the right to teach particularly ICM programmes. Adding, “The only approved centres or institutions in the Northern Region that teach ICM courses are the Shareworld Development Institute and Academy of Business Administration. Apart from these two institutions, any institution that claims to be offering such courses is only deceiving the public to invest their money where they wouldn’t get any profit”, he warned.

He dared prospective business management or corporate executives to visit the ICM website at www.icm.ac.uk and find out the names of all approved centres in Ghana or any part of the world before making any attempt to pay money to anyone or institution to learn an ICM course.

Meanwhile, the Director of Shareworld Development Institute disclosed that since 2009 the school has turned out about 40 people in various management programmes which had seen most of them received promotions at their places of work while some too, gained employment into highly rated institutions with fat pay and other freebies.