Tertiary Education Commission Research Articles

Teachers’ Knowledge and Usage of Ethnomathematics in Asokwa Municipality (Kumasi) of Ashanti Region of Ghana

This study investigated teachers’ knowledge and usage of ethnomathematics in Asokwa Municipality (Kumasi) in the Ashanti region of Ghana. The triangulation design of the mixed method was used. Purposive sampling was used to select all the 62 mathematics teachers from all the public junior high schools in the municipality. Results from the data analysis showed that mathematics teachers in Asokwa Municipality possess a high level of knowledge of ethnomathematics, with an overall mean score of 3.68 and a standard deviation of 0.61. The study recommended that Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) should ensure that teachers’ colleges of education train mathematics teachers on the integration of ethnomathematics in the teaching of mathematics

Contract academic staff career development: An oxymoron?

​As part of its Strategic Review, the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) is seeking to foster a broad discussion about the issues confronting the research workforce. This paper examines the increasing predominance of contract or ‘temporary’ staff amongst research academics in biomedical sciences. This transformation of the academic workforce has gone almost unnoticed amongst the wider community. However, New Zealand’s research performance is critical to developing the knowledge-based economy. As highlighted in major reviews overseas, the instability associated with an excessive dependence on contract staff for research has major implications for the future. We explore some of the factors behind this transformation, implications for research and academic performance, and some potential policy changes that have been proposed to mitigate its effects. This review particularly highlights an immediate policy issue, in that we found that there are no systematic data to either quantify the changes over time or the current extent of New Zealand’s dependence on contract staff for tertiary research and teaching.

Job Satisfaction and Commitment in Ghana: Perspectives from College Tutors

Recruiting and persuading teachers to stay in their jobs is a key educational challenge in Ghana. Growing demands and expectations on teachers have resulted in higher turnover. Based on this context, the major goal of this study was to assess if job satisfaction predicts the organisational commitment of college of education tutors. To accomplish this goal, this study set out to investigate and produce a hypothesis that explains and specifies the variables of job satisfaction and organisational commitment and the links between these variables. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was utilised to determine if job satisfaction predicts organisational commitment in colleges of education. The study’s target demographic was tutors at Ghana’s public colleges of education, with a sample size of 319. Questionnaires were used to gather data. The hypothesis was tested using multivariate multiple regression, structural equation modelling, and process analysis. According to the findings of the hypothesis, communication, a sub-dimension of job satisfaction, predicted affective commitment. Once again, co-workers and communication predicted normative commitment. Job satisfaction predicted organisational commitment. Focusing on building good job satisfaction among tutors in Ghana will assist in development of varied degrees of commitment. It is thus concluded that those who are satisfied in their jobs exhibit positive traits like greater performance, improved workflow and increased productivity. The study’s findings indicate that job satisfaction was a predictor of organisational commitment among tutors in Ghana. It is therefore recommended that principals and the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission look at ways such as recognition and reward, work-life balance as well as compensation and benefits, co-workers and team dynamics to improve tutor job satisfaction.

Māori Research Development: a National Challenge

​The New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) is seriously concerned by comments made by Dr Leonie Pihama on the exclusion of Māori voices from science funding processes in New Zealand.In a statement published on the Te Wharepora Hou blog site [1], Dr Pihama discusses the impact on the Māori research community of the decision to discontinue Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) funding of ‘Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga’, the only CoRE that addresses Māori research needs and capability building in the Māori research community.We acknowledge that the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Tertiary EducationCommission have run an open, contestable process. The Association does not want to criticise individual funding decisions, and observes that these decisions have been made in a highly competitive environment after a process of peer review.However, Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga plays a unique role in New Zealand’s research landscape, and a strong case can be made that its goals are simply incommensurate with any other CoRE to which it might be compared.We also consider that the points made by Dr Pihama about the wider impact of this decision are well made, especially in the context of the National Science Challenges (NSCs). These ten challenges were not selected in a contestable process but rather after a long consultative period.Of serious concern, then, is the claim that ‘MBIE also took a position against ensuring specific Māori input and aspirations in the process’. The process and timeline of consultation throughout the NSCs has caused some concern in the broader scientific community, but it is scandalous that they did not incorporate the views of Māori from an early stage in their development.The President of the NZAS, Dr Nicola Gaston, said ‘The scientific community struggles with diversity, as was highlighted in the case of gender in a recent Herald article [2].That Māori researchers have struggled to be included in the National Science Challenges is a disgrace and an embarrassment’. The NZAS endorses the recommendations made by Dr Pihama, and urges MBIE to give them serious consideration. [1] http://tewhareporahou.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-denial-of-maori-researchdevelopment/ [2] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/science/news/article.cfm?c_id=82&objectid=11216759

Sociological Appraisal of Cultural Digital Skills Gap in Freetown, Sierra Leone

The current technological and social panorama brings current benefits and threats that depend upon skills to conduct and achieve. Cultural digital skill is a call for benefiting from technology, and foremost cultural digital skills are imperative because they grant folks the ability to utilise technology in a transient’s manner. Sierra Leonean universities and technical and vocational institutions endure advancing an Information Communications Technology labour pool that is neither modelled by policy nor well assigned to the industry requirements, exclusively at the great point. The Municipal’s graduates are underprepared to accommodate the appeal of the current organisational structure and are incapable of establishing impressive results, progressing to a dearth of proficient and skilled labour pool appropriate for the Freetown cultural digital revolution. The paper anticipates appraising the foremost cultural digital skills evolvement procedure in higher learning institutions, the social reality of the process, and identifies possible challenges leading to the cultural digital skills gap. The paper utilised an archival research strategy and applied the design social reality gap framework with its optimistic record of social dimensions to appraise curriculum, staff, equipment, student enrollment, laboratory and graduation at the higher learning institutions in Freetown Sierra Leone that teach Information Communications Technology programmes. The research findings communicate that there is a low student enrolment in Information Communication Technology programmes resulting in a low number of graduates joining the municipal industry. The appeal for Information Communications Technology skills continues to expand while the industry complains that graduates are not well prepared to undertake projects from the industry forcing the Freetown municipality to rely on foreign expertise. The curriculum utilised in the learning institutions is mismatched, leading to inappropriate competencies to be evolved among the graduates. In spite of the prevalence of standards and protocols from the university regulator (Sierra Leone Tertiary Education Commission), they are not enthusiastically sanctioned due to challenges faced by the regulator and the institutions. A recommended operation strategy was evolved to bridge Freetown's cultural digital skills gap among government agencies, educators or trainers, and employers. The paper spotlighted skills evolvement in higher learning institutions, excluding the technology hubs and complementary programmes offering training programmes for advanced cultural digital skills in the Freetown Municipality. The paper confirmed that inappropriate competencies are being evolved among the graduates, making them unqualified for meeting the requirement of the industry and the Freetown municipality. The paper responds to the policies related to Information Communications Technology labour pool evolvement in the Freetown municipality. The paper will trigger the evolvement of current thinking or thought and social interactions among the learning institutions, academic staff or trainers, employers and government agencies to link the cultural skills gap leading to an empowered municipality competent of upspringing the economic expansion.

Internal Quality Assurance Policies and Practices in Colleges of Education in Ghana: Resource Dependency Theory Perspective

The study examined internal quality assurance policies and practices in managing colleges of education in Ghana to meet the requirements of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission in the perspective of resource dependency theory. The population were staff of the colleges of education. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 2 Principals, 6 Quality Assurance Officers, and 12 Department Heads in the Colleges. Telephone interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were imported into NVivo 11 for analysis. The study found that even though most of the Colleges are state-owned they have to depend on their internal structures to ensure processes meet government and regulatory body expectations. It was recommended that affiliate universities, in collaboration with the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, should support the Colleges of Education to build internal capacity for Quality Assurance.

Institutional Strategies and Graduate Employability Development Skills of Business Students: The Mediating Role of Graduate Capital Forms

This study aims to assess the effect of institutional strategies on the development of employability skills, mediated by graduate capital forms among business education students in some selected public and transnational universities in Ghana. Institutional theory underpinned this study. The institutional strategy constructs of curriculum design, extracurricular activities, work-integrated learning, internship and job placement, university engagement with industries, career centers, and student engagement with employability development opportunities predicted the dependent variable graduate employability with the mediating variables. On a sample of 1280 survey participants, structural equation modelling was used. The findings showed that all of the constructs included in institutional strategies had a favourable, significant impact on the growth of graduate employability abilities. The development of social, cultural, and psychological capital forms under the mediating variable was supported to have an indirect influence or partial mediation between institutional tactics and the development of graduate employability abilities. The findings recommend public universities should be more proactive in promoting the employability agenda by assisting students in building their employability skills in a digitalized world. Again, regulators and decision-makers like the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) should reconsider making the development of employability skills in the academic fields of undergraduate education that reflect and merit the rapidly changing skill requirements of contemporary and digitalised work environments, especially curriculum design.

Developing a micro-credential for Learning Designers: A Delphi Study

Teaching and learning online have increased as a consequence of the pandemic. There is an increasing need for learning design proficiency both in terms of new roles and also new expertise. In recognition of this, the Tertiary Education Commission in Aotearoa | New Zealand is supporting the design of a micro-credential to develop introductory knowledge in this field. Given the complexity and breadth of competencies needed in this role determining the foundational components is challenging. Prior research focused on professional standards and employer requirements only capture one perspective of the role. In this Delphi study, we sought the views of thirty-four learning designers to determine the essential competencies required for learning design in the current (post)pandemic context. Findings demonstrate the importance of understanding the nuances of different modes of learning, pedagogy before technology and the value of relationships.

Regulations Governing Student Internship Programme in Ghana: A Sequential Explanatory Multi-Stakeholder Approach

Purpose: This paper seeks to ascertain the regulations governing students’ internship programmes in Selected Technical Universities in Ghana.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: The sequential explanatory mixed methods approach was utilised. Two separate structured questionnaires were administered to 481 students and 299 senior members (lecturers and administrators) of six selected technical universities (TUs); whereas members of industry, executives of business associations and government regulatory bodies in the tertiary sector of Ghana’s education system were interviewed, using an interview guide. Data was analysed through descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and Constant Comparative Analysis.
 Findings: There was no well-defined enforceable law requiring TUs to secure internship placement for students, although, some regulatory bodies insisted that TUs showed evidence of their ability to secure placements for their students for industrial training before awarding programme accreditation.
 Research Limitation/Implication: The study focuses on regulations governing student internship programmes in Ghana. The study concentrated on selected Technical Universities in Ghana.
 Practical Implication: The knowledge advanced in this study underscores the need for proper synergy between Technical Universities regarding regulation governing student internship which should be spearheaded by the government of Ghana through the Ministry of Education, Ghana Tertiary Education Commission acting as a facilitator, creating interfaces and providing funding and incentives.
 Social Implication: The Government of Ghana can allow companies some tax exemptions or make the environment business-friendly for companies so that they can expand their operation to accept more interns.
 Originality/Value: This paper synchronises the perspectives of multiple actors on the regulations governing student internship programmes.

The Impact of Instructional Materials in Teaching and Learning of Biology in the Colleges of Education in the Central Region of Ghana

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of instructional materials in teaching and learning biology in the Colleges of Education in the Central Region of Ghana. Qualitatively, a case study research design was selected for the study. The population of the study consists of three Biology tutors in the three Colleges of Education in the Central Region. The purposive sampling technique was chosen to select all the three colleges and three Biology tutors for the study. The interview guide was the main instrument for the data collection. Data were analysed using the interpretative technique based on the themes arrived at during the data collection from the respondents. The study concluded that instructional materials boast students’ cognitive abilities and arouse their interest in the lesson by helping them to reason critically during teaching and learning. The study also revealed that the competencies level of tutors helps them in the assessment of the subject, selecting relevant materials for each concept. Their pedagogical skills depend on their competencies in the classroom instructions. The study also concluded that a good presentation of a lesson has a substantial impact on teaching and learning situations, as well as the vast amount of information available to students, to supplement their instruction and the principles for appropriate use of instructional materials. It is recommended that professional development should be organised for the Biology tutors in their respective colleges to have competencies in using relevant instructional materials in assessing students in Biology lessons. It is also recommended that Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (G-TEC), National Teaching Council (NTC), and universities should collaborate with the colleges to organise workshops and seminars for tutors teaching Biology to update their knowledge in the use of digital instructional materials in lesson presentation.

IMPACT OF NATIONAL TEACHERS’ STANDARDS ON QUALITY AND EFFECTIVE EDUCATION DELIVERY

Purpose: The study focused on the impact of the National Teachers’ Standards on quality and effective education delivery.
 Methodology: The study adopted a mixed methods approach. In all, 20 tutors and 500 students were selected from 10 Colleges of Education in the Northern part of Ghana using purposive and quota sampling procedures. Data were collected using questionnaire and semi-structured interview guide. Quantitative data were analysed using mean and standard deviation while the qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis.
 Findings: The results showed that the student-teachers explained concepts clearly using examples familiar to learners, employed a variety of instructional strategies that encourages learner participation and critical thinking and paid attention to all learners, especially girls and students with Special Educational Needs, created a safe, encouraging learning environment and used appropriate disciplinary methods in the classroom. From the results, it was concluded that that the student-teachers were positively impacted by the National Teachers’ Standards in their teaching practices.
 Unique Contributions to Theory, Practice and Policy: Tutors in Colleges of Education increase their training of student-teachers in terms of keeping of records about learners since this found to be an area that needed improvement. Ghana Tertiary Education Commission together with the National Teachers’ Council should encourage and ensure that Colleges of Education are implementing the National Teachers’ Standards effectively to better prepare student-teachers. Future researchers can adopt the Reform Theory of Action as used in the current study and use the findings of the current study as support for the theory.

Industry impact of QuakeCoRE Flagship Programme 4

QuakeCoRE is one of 10 Centres of Research Excellence funded by the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission. With a focus on earthquake resilience of communities and societies, it has played a major role in addressing needs identified following the Christchurch Earthquake and other major events over the last decade. QuakeCoRE comprises a number of Flagship Programmes, including Flagship 4, which is entitled “Next-generation infrastructure: Low-damage and repairable solutions.” This paper aims to support turning research into practice by identifying the key areas of Flagship 4 that are likely to have an impact on the industry. Five key areas of impact were identified, based on a review of the published research, engagement with Flagship 4 leadership and the authors’ experience in the industry. For each area identified, summaries of the major research outcomes are provided, along with views as to how these can support the engineering practice.

Perceptions of Stakeholders on Student Teacher’s Wearing of School Uniforms: A Case of Some Selected Colleges of Education in Northern Region, Ghana

The study focused on two particular colleges of education in Ghana's Northern Region and explored stakeholders' perceptions of the use of school uniforms in colleges of education. The case study research design and qualitative methodology were used in the study. Convenience sampling was used to select fifty (50) stakeholders, including fifteen (15) tutors from Bagabaga College of Education, five (5) staff members from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), fifteen (15) tutors from Tamale College of Education, and fifteen (15) employees from the Sagnarigu Municipal Education Office in Tamale. The tool utilized to gather information for the research question created for the study was an interview. The study's findings revealed that the majority of the study's participants felt that wearing a uniform fosters equality, unity, and makes student teachers from various socioeconomic backgrounds same, as well as eliminating bullying and gang activity in colleges. Based on the research, it was suggested that each academic year, student teachers should attend orientation to learn about the uniform policy at the colleges of education and to understand that wearing a school uniform does not belittle them as tertiary students. In order to execute a standard policy at the colleges, college administration must be adaptable. If a unified policy is implemented, it must be assessed to determine whether it is effective.

Leadership Styles of Principals Based on Setting, Zone, and Location of Public Colleges of Education in Ghana

This study investigated the leadership styles of principals in public Colleges of Education (CoEs) in Ghana based on the setting, zone and location of the colleges. The quantitative method of the cross-sectional survey design was adopted for the study. The census sampling technique was employed to obtain 38 principals for the study. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) by Bass and Avolio (2004) was adapted to collect data from the principals. Means, standard deviation, t-test and ANOVA were utilised in analysing the data. The descriptive analysis established that generally, principals of public CoEs in Ghana mostly used transformational leadership style as compared to transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles. The inferential analyses also revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the leadership styles of the principals based on setting, zone and location of the colleges. Among the recommendations is that the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), formerly known as the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), should consider competence when selecting and appointing principals and not the setting, zone and location of public CoEs because generally, these variables did not statistically significantly determine the leadership styles adopted by the principals.

Emotional Intelligence of Headteachers in the Senior High Schools in Ghana: A Conundrum?

The study employed the explanatory sequential mixed methods design where quantitative and qualitative data sets were collected to address the research problem. Two hundred and sixty-two (262) headteachers were sampled randomly from the Central and Greater Accra regions of Ghana for the quantitative phase of the study whilst eight (8) headteachers were subsequently sampled purposively for the qualitative phase of the study. The quantitative data were analyzed using means and standards deviations whilst the qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. The study found that the emotional intelligence of the headteachers was low. The study further established that the academic qualification of the headteachers was not a significant predictor of their Emotional Intelligence (EI). However, the gender and age of the headteachers predicted their EI significantly. It was concluded the EI level of the headteachers may affect how they lead and manage their respective schools. It is recommended that periodic pragmatic and purposeful in-service and workshops in EI should be provided for headteachers in the study area by the Metro Directorate of Education. Furthermore, the Circuit Supervisors, Metro Directors and the Ghana Education Service should liaise with the Ghana Psychological Council to provide psychological support for the headteachers in the Senior High Schools within the study area. Finally, the Ministry of Education through the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission should ensure that teacher education programmes that are offered in the institutions of higher learning in Ghana have contents in the area of emotional intelligence and educational leadership to equip headteacher in the management of their schools.

Towards a conceptual framework for customer relationship management for public universities in Mauritius

Public universities in Mauritius aim to climb the overall universities' ranking by improving the quality of teaching, research, and student support services so as to improve overall student satisfaction. They are also devising strategies to achieve higher student engagement by developing effective relationships with students. The Tertiary Education Commission has pointed out many student support problems and administrative bureaucracy in its recent quality audit reports that may lead to poor student engagement and attrition. The current research seeks to address this problem by proposing a customer relationship management framework based on a mixed research approach based on survey findings with 370 students and personal interviews with management in public universities. The proposed components that have been extracted are academic support services, financial assistance, administrative services, student facilitation and technological support services. The current research will be highly instrumental for improving student engagement and loyalty through higher customer satisfaction.

Towards a conceptual framework for customer relationship management for public universities in Mauritius

Public universities in Mauritius aim to climb the overall universities' ranking by improving the quality of teaching, research, and student support services so as to improve overall student satisfaction. They are also devising strategies to achieve higher student engagement by developing effective relationships with students. The Tertiary Education Commission has pointed out many student support problems and administrative bureaucracy in its recent quality audit reports that may lead to poor student engagement and attrition. The current research seeks to address this problem by proposing a customer relationship management framework based on a mixed research approach based on survey findings with 370 students and personal interviews with management in public universities. The proposed components that have been extracted are academic support services, financial assistance, administrative services, student facilitation and technological support services. The current research will be highly instrumental for improving student engagement and loyalty through higher customer satisfaction.

Visual literacy learning from your environment: A rhizomatic m-learning approach.

Due to the recent widespread adoption of technologies such as the internet, social media, and digital image capture and creation, the average person today needs to decode and process information from many different formats and media to fully participate in the contemporary world (Tertiary Education Commission, 2008; Hanifan, 2008). This study aimed to address this need by exploring how the visuals one encounters every day can be leveraged as opportunities for learning visual literacy. The aim operates on the presupposition that a person is surrounded by visuals in their everyday environment which they could potentially analyse to deepen their knowledge. However, learning from visuals in one’s environment is often beyond the capabilities of novice learners, due to a lack of learning support in this informal learning setting. Therefore, this study propositioned a learning model of visual skills based on mobile learning (m-learning) and rhizomatic learning.
 M-learning allows learners to learn in multiple contexts, across time and space, through social and content interactions, using personal electronic devices so that learning can be available everywhere and every time (Crompton, 2013; Georgiev, Georgieva, & Smrikarov, 2004). This leads to learning that can be more situated in a learner’s surroundings (Gikas & Grant, 2013), which is an attractive proposition when considering how learners can learn from life’s everyday imagery when they are separated from traditional learning support. 
 In rhizomatic learning, the curriculum is not predefined by experts or teachers, instead, “community acts as the curriculum, spontaneously shaping, constructing, and reconstructing itself and the subject of its learning in the same way that the rhizome responds to changing environmental conditions” (Cormier, 2008, p. 5). In this way, rhizomatic learning communities can provide crowd-sourced peer support as ubiquitous as imagery is.
 The learning model proposed in this presentation was arrived at by utilising a practice-based research approach. The learning model was implemented and tested as prototype for an app. Usability testing and interviews were used to qualitatively evaluate the prototype, as well as the underlying learning model. The outcomes of the study demonstrate that visual literacy can be achieved by novice learners from contingent learning encounters in informal learning environments through collaboration and by providing context-aware learning support. The presentation will focus on the outcome of the study, which is the learning model and its pedagogical assumptions.

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

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.

Higher education challenges for public universities in Mauritius

The research paper seeks to unravel some of the higher education challenges and opportunities with the wave of globalisation and internationalisation in the Mauritian context. The country ambitions to be an education hub such as Malaysia and consequently, it is important to assess opportunities and challenges for policy decisions. A qualitative approach has been used for the purpose for this research with the use of focus group study with key stakeholders in the higher education sector. The study also makes use of the Quality Audit Reports conducted by the Tertiary Education Commission to synthesise the key challenges. Reference is also made to global education reports and to successful educational hubs for purposes of comparison. The research findings emphasise the importance of effective human resource strategies, need to improve teaching and research quality and also the need to bolster the existing quality assurance system. There is also increasing emphasis on the use of technology in the higher education learning environment such as the learning management system. The research emphasises the impact of globalisation on higher education which drives the need for a market-oriented and student centred approach to global education. The main limitation is that the results may not be generalised and that it is specific to the Public universities in Mauritius.