Embedding quality culture in higher education in Ghana Quality control and assessment in emerging private universities

• Published in: Higher education Vol. 68; no. 6; pp. 837 - 849
• Main Author: Ntim, Stephen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Science+Business Media B. V 01.12.2014; Springer Netherlands; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic standards; Ausland; College instruction; Colleges & universities; Colleges and universities; Consumer education; Corporate culture; Culture; Education; Education policy; Education reform; Education, Higher; Educational activities; Educational institutions; Educational Quality; Evaluation; Foreign Countries; Formal education; Ghana; Graduate students; Higher Education; Hochschulsystem; Human capital; Informal economy; Information; Knowledge economy; Labor market; Monitoring systems; Organizational change; Organizational Culture; Peer review; Private Colleges; Private schools; Private sector; Private universities and colleges; Public sector; Public universities and colleges; Quality; Quality Assurance; Quality control; Quality management; Quality of education; Quality standards; Qualitätssicherung; School accreditation; Students; Surveys; Unemployment; Universities; Universities and colleges; University graduates; Ghana; Quality monitoring systems; Quality assurance; Higher educational institutions
• ISSN: 0018-1560; 1573-174X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10734-014-9747-8

High quality provision has been one of the key aims of the current reforms in higher educational institutions across the globe since the beginning of the century and the millennium. Consequently this has led to the increasing demand for quality assurance (QA). This report identifies those institutional processes and structures that support the development of an internal quality culture in the emerging private universities in Ghana. The study bases its understanding of "quality culture" on the definition which sees it as referring to an organizational culture characterized by a cultural/psychological element on the one hand, and a structural/managerial element on the other hand. If we take our educational activity as a process, then the process (the activity) requires inputs (information, materials), resources (people, equipment, space) and control (QMS) to produce outputs (products and/or services). QA then is a culture-a way of continuously aiming to improve and do better-and the private universities in Ghana are responding to this. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).