Tertiary Education Reforms in Ghana: Implications for Executive and Regulatory Governance of Public Universities

Abstract

This article is the result of an exploratory research on regulation and corporate governance and developments in the tertiary education sector of Ghana. The materials reviewed included the legislations establishing public universities and oversight agencies and the draft bills for the reforms in the sector. The findings were qualitatively analysed. The governance and regulation of public universities in Ghana is currently going through reforms- reforms that promises sweeping changes not only in the executive governance of the universities and the regulatory agencies, but also fundamentally, in the regulatory governance of the tertiary education sector. The piecemeal individual university Acts will give way to a single universities Act and consequently, harmonised universities statutes. This has implications for the autonomy of public universities in terms of institutional, academic and financial independence. The tertiary education oversight bodies, the National Council for Tertiary Education and the National Accreditation Board will also be merged into one oversight agency – Ghana Tertiary Education Commission. This article examines the current executive and regulatory governance of public universities and the oversight agencies and concludes that public universities under the status quo enjoy a high degree of institutional and academic independence. It is however posited that this will be eroded in the emerging regime. It further reveals that the present regulatory governance framework lacks both formal and de-facto independence resulting from lack of financial autonomy and tenure insecurity. Consequently the regime lacks credibility. Conversely, the emerging regime both in terms of the executive governance of the universities and regulatory governance are tainted with insecurity of tenure, lack of institutional and financial independence. This will undermine policy and regulatory credibility with negative implications for academic freedom.