Private Higher Education’s Quality Assurance in Ghana

Abstract

This article discusses factors influencing the establishment of Ghana’s National Accreditation Board. Salient aspects are the growing population’s demand for higher education, increase in private providers and concerns about quality. Also discussed are the accreditation board’s quality assurance procedures and attendant problems.

Impact of Service Quality on Students’ Satisfaction in a Ghanaian Public Tertiary Institution

“…According to the National Accreditation Board information, as of 2017 Ghana can boost of ten (10) public universities, six (6) technical universities, seventy-four (74) private tertiary institutions offering degree programmes, four polytechnics, and several other institutions of higher learning. With the explosion of these institutions of learning, a number of studies Utaka (2008), Tsevi (2014), Esia-Donkoh and Antwi (2015) and industry watchers have expressed concern about the quality of service delivered at these institutions, especially with regards to quality of teaching and learning.…”

“…Such concerns are usually based on arguments such as the competence of the teaching staff (Tettey, 2006;Mayer & Wilde, 2015), large class sizes which does not allow individual attention from lecturers (Benbow, Mizrachi, Oliver, & Said-Moshiro, 2007;Esia-Donkoh & Antwi, 2015) and poor or inadequate infrastructure in these institutions (Tsevi, 2014;Esia-Donkoh & Antwi, 2015), the gap between industry and academia (Amu & Offei-Ansah, 2011;Attah, 2017;Avornyo, 2013;Mustafa, 2012) and others. These concerns bring to the fore the need to establish what the acceptable standards are when it comes to quality service delivery in an institution of higher education.…”

“…However, as posited by The World Bank (2010), Beaumont (2012), Tsevi (2014) and others, university funding cuts in many countries the world over and challenges of dealing with increasing student numbers (Henard & Rosevere, 2012;Materu, 2007) have resulted in a situation where researchers, players in the educational sector and industry executives tend to criticize the quality of service delivery at higher educational institutions especially in developing countries. The major concerns of these critics usually bother on poor funding of the institutions, leading to poor quality delivery, proliferation of private institutions (some of which lack accreditation from national regulatory bodies), infrastructural concerns, course content, relationship between the disjoint between academia and industry and others (Tsevi, 2014). LeBlanc and Nguyen (1997) and Rowley (1996) argue that there is the need for authorities of higher educational institutions to guard the academic preferences, knowledge, quality of service in order not to only meet expectations of students but to also ensure that they (higher educational institutions) become more progressive and effective in the service they offer.…”

Perceived quality of private education and fears of stratification: Investigating the propositions of human capital theory by exploring the case of Colombia

“…for Malaysia;Tsevi (2014) for Ghana;Silas (2005) for Me´xico;Rodrı´guez and Viegas (2011) for Portugal; AUCC (2011) for Canada; andRadloff and Coates (2013) for Australia.…”

Quality Assurance and Higher Fashion Education in Ghana: Examining the Contemporary Quandary

“…Most of the current quality assurance research focuses on how government policies have impacted quality assurance in Ghana. Including quality assurance in distance learning, quality assurance in students' academic assessment, the accreditation process and how it has influenced the quality of the sector [3,4,5,6,7]. Research, which addresses higher education quality assurance in a holistic way, is uncommon.…”