Exploring the internal quality assurance management practices at the University of Ghana

Abstract

There is a dearth in literature on how quality assurance actors perceive the effectiveness of their own approaches to internal quality assurance practices in Ghana’s tertiary education system. This study, with the systems model as an analytical construct, used a constructivist-interpretivist approach to explore the internal quality assurance management practices at the University of Ghana. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were used to gather data from the University of Ghana (UG). The themes that emerged from the data indicated that UG has a comprehensive quality assurance policy, policy implementation structure and quality assurance management system. The results show that there is lack of well–resourced quality assurance offices at the policy implementation staircases, inadequate quality assurance stakeholders’ involvement and neglect of quality assurance measures for educational outcome sub-system. The results imply that for UG to improve on its internal quality assurance management there is a need to establish well-resourced quality assurance offices at the policy implementation staircases. In addition, quality assurance actors should involve all stakeholders stipulated in the quality assurance policy documents.