Clients’ perception of quality tertiary education in Ghana

Abstract

Tertiary education institutions are established to provide quality post-secondary education. Tertiary education institutions have established quality assurance units to guarantee that clients are served appropriately according to predefined quality indicators. Despite this guarantee, the quality of tertiary education is being questioned. This paper discusses the quality of tertiary education largely from the perspective of clients. It explores the concept of quality, examines a model of the path to quality tertiary education, and states the challenges of institutional massification with respect to quality. The discussion points to the key roles of leadership and management and institutional massification play in student engagement. Leadership and management have to set the stage for the process of achieving quality tertiary education, and sustain the process by harnessing human and material resources to meaningfully engage students. Leadership provides the physical infrastructure, recruits qualified staff, operationalizes sound employability and entrepreneurship strategies, and creates a democratic environment to promote accountability and productivity. At the heart of quality tertiary education is good student engagement. While massification has improved access and equity, it has put pressure on physical infrastructure and staff and reduced the quality of student engagement.