Is increased access to private HE killing quality?

The global increase in private higher education has been significant, but in some Sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana, the rapid growth has been described as ‘phenomenal’, ‘sprung up like mushrooms’, ‘dramatic’ and ‘particularly striking’.

Private higher education in Ghana emerged in the early 1990s, following deregulation of the higher education sector. The country has since seen a surge in the number of private universities.

According to figures on the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission’s website, the country has seven chartered private universities and 105 private university colleges.

Although the emergence of private universities has made higher education more accessible, there are concerns about quality and standards at some of the private institutions.

The increase in growth is expected to continue and, therefore, it is imperative that the activities of private universities are explored to ascertain the quality of the education provided.

I became interested in researching the problem after reading about the compromise of quality and standards in private universities in Ghana in 2010 on the University World News web page.

The aim of my research was to explore the quality assurance mechanisms at eight private institutions in Ghana, with a view to producing a quality assurance model that would strengthen the current systems.

Due to the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes quality in a Ghanaian context, the study investigated relevant literature in both African and international contexts to develop a quality assurance framework.

The study established that quality was contextual and constituted of attributes that must be agreed on by stakeholders. The study also established that quality assurance processes are interconnected. Consequently, a defect in one stage was likely to affect the other stages and render the entire system ineffective.

My study specifically explored the quality assurance mechanisms of the universities and quality indicators such as human and physical resources, admissions, teaching and learning, governance, students’ achievement, graduation, and employment.

A summary of the findings is presented in two sections: quality assurance mechanisms, and quality assurance indicators.

Quality assurance mechanisms

The findings on quality assurance mechanisms as a system indicate that each of the participating universities had a quality assurance unit with a designated head and they appeared to be doing well planning and implementing their quality assurance systems.

However, data collection, monitoring and evaluation and improving quality were found to be weak. Data collection is crucial in any type of system that seeks to monitor, evaluate and make improvements.

Therefore, with data collection weak, it was not surprising to find that monitoring and evaluation were lacking, and subsequently, the opportunity to improve quality was overlooked.

Benchmarking was also found to be non-existent. The private higher education sector is a diverse community and, because there is no benchmarking, the universities are not taking advantage of sharing quality improvement ideas. This is a great opportunity to improve quality assurance that is being missed.

The recommendation is that it is critical for private universities to pay attention to all the stages in the quality assurance process to ensure that the process is not rendered ineffective due to malfunctioning in some of the stages.

It is also recommended that the private universities take advantage of technological advancements to improve their data collection activities; make a conscious effort to implement quality improvement from feedback, and embed benchmarking in their quality assurance systems to help improve quality.

External collaborative benchmarking will allow best practices to be shared among the universities and could ensure that continuous improvement is achieved.

Quality assurance indicators

In relation to quality indicators, it was evident that, although the participating universities appeared to have data on physical and human resources, governance, monitoring and evaluation, teaching, learning and admission processes, they did not have data or enough data on students’ achievements, graduation, and employment.

How, then, do they monitor their contribution to Ghanaian society? How do they know if they are producing the graduates needed in the Ghanaian job market? How do they make improvements if they are not collating data and monitoring these quality indicators?

The study also found a shortfall of lecturers with PhD qualifications. One interviewee commented that this was simply due to lack of funds to recruit PhD supervisors.

The immediate impact is that the private universities will not have the capacity to supervise research work at PhD level.

Another revelation was that the private universities run identical business and IT-related programmes and neglect the capital-intensive courses like sciences and engineering.

An interviewee explained that these courses did not require substantial capital, so the universities found it convenient and easy to venture. The long-term implication of this trend is that the country’s labour market will be clogged with IT and business graduates at the expense of other fields.

The study established a dire need for policy direction in the curriculums provided by the private universities. This is to ensure their curriculums are targeted to the real needs of the Ghanaian job market. This requires universities and industry to communicate so that industry will have an input in curriculum design.

In the wider higher education sector, there is a need for policy direction on the discourse on what constitutes quality in the Ghanaian context, and which quality indicators are needed. This will ensure that there is a common goal for the universities to work towards.

Following this study, the Education Quality Network (EQN) founded by the author is currently looking to develop a benchmarking tool called EducationMark to serve as an online repository or a one-stop performance management shop for private universities in Ghana to share and access data about how their peers are performing.

The EQN looks forward to collaborating with private universities and higher education regulatory bodies in Ghana in a bid to create an online space where comprehensive knowledge on best practices, cost management, access, quality management and relevance of the education they provide is accessible. Benchmarking could ultimately cultivate a data collection culture among the private universities.

In education, access, quality, and relevance must be achieved concurrently. The emergence of private higher education has no doubt increased access.

However, the sector needs more clear-cut and defined policy directions to improve the existing internal quality assurance mechanisms. This could ensure that quality and relevance are also achieved.

This is a commentary. Josephine Odjidja (PhD) is an education quality assurance consultant. Her e-mail address is: eqnoffice@gmail.com