Accreditation is a formal process by which the Psychology Council, mandated by law, assesses and approves the training and practice of applied psychology in Ghana. Accreditation provides a formal process for ongoing evaluation and improvement of psychology programmes.
PC accreditation sets professional and practice standards for all institutions running psychology programmes — enabling all institutions to meet nationally endorsed standards in the training of practitioners.
The Psychology Council is the only body mandated by law (Part 5 of Act 857 of 2013) to assess and ensure the highest standards in the training and practice of applied psychology, including counselling and special education. GPC accreditation is an additional requirement for all National Accreditation Board-accredited institutions wishing to run a psychology programme.
Accreditation ensures the quality of the psychology profession on behalf of public interest and public safety. It involves comprehensively examining education providers and their programmes of study against relevant accreditation standards.
Education providers of psychology programmes are subject to an accreditation process against the GPC Accreditation Standards to ensure adequate standards of education for psychologists, paraprofessionals and lay practitioners, and the ongoing improvement of educational quality in the applied psychology discipline.
Accreditation is a process of assessment of programmes of study in applied psychology (and of the higher education provider offering them) against the PC Standards. PC considers accreditation as a process based on self and peer-assessment for the purpose of publicly and openly assuring adequate standards of education for psychologists and the constant improvement of educational quality in the psychology discipline.
PC accepts applications from recognised higher education providers offering appropriate qualifications in applied psychology and requests that providers familiarise themselves with the information on this website before contacting PC for advice.
An education provider may be granted the following accreditation status:
Any application for accreditation of a new education provider or programme of study which is unsuccessful in gaining Accreditation without Conditions or Accreditation with Conditions will have no accreditation status.
Institution and school course approval is conducted by the Psychology Council and consists of assessing courses against the Council's Course Approval Guidelines for Psychology, Paraprofessional and Lay Practitioner Courses to determine if they meet the training requirements for accreditation.
