Abstract:

The central focus for this paper is the process used by the National Accreditation Board in Ghana to introduce a new Quality Assurance Instrument in the Colleges of Education, the uptake of the Colleges to embedding the system into practice and what the outcomes are after implementation. The core mandate of Colleges of Education in Ghana is to prepare quality teachers for the public primary and lower (Junior) secondary schools – called Basic Schools. In furtherance of this and to respond to new trends in teacher education, the Government of Ghana, in 2012, passed a law converting all teacher training colleges (who hitherto were preparing teachers for a 3-year Certificate qualification) into tertiary institutions, naming them Colleges of education (preparing teachers for a 3-year Diploma qualification in Basic Education). However, from October 2018, the Colleges of Education started preparing teachers for a 4-year Bachelor of Education in Basic Education programme of study. This new mandate to the Colleges of Education is within the overall teacher education reform initiated by the Government of Ghana in 2014 and brought with it the prevailing issues of accreditation and quality assurance in the Colleges of Education. The new mandate also rendered the existing Quality Assurance instrument of the National Accreditation Board obsolete.

There was an immediate need to develop new quality assurance instrument that would respond to the peculiar needs of the colleges - a fit for purpose instrument - that supports consistent assessment of quality against agreed indicators so that the Colleges of Education take ownership of their own improvement. Whilst this represents a significant culture change and requires enormous investment of time from College Senior Leadership Teams and their Quality Assurance Officers, the process adopted by the National Accreditation Board is meant to provide clarity and ensure that Colleges take ownership and adopt the instrument as a necessary part of their improvement process.

Through participatory observation, interviews and consultation, this paper has established that the self-assessment element of the quality assurance process has enabled the colleges to generally demonstrate compliance of their practices to statutory and legal framework for tertiary educations in Ghana. The process of consultation, piloting and full roll out of the instrument has provided key stakeholders - the College Councils, the National Council for Tertiary Education and the National Accreditation Board itself - what a good College of Education should look like. As a standardised instrument, it provides clear and concise guidance as a basis for the accreditation of the colleges of education. It also provides useful prompts that encourage consistency in internal quality assessment within the colleges. For the college leader, the Form is a self-evaluation tool and improvement planning data collection instrument. As a national quality assurance and accreditation instrument, the capacity of College teams and Quality Assurance Officers to use the instrument for evaluating the effectiveness of Colleges of Education practices and provisions, to provide an overall rating of the College in terms of quality practices and provision needs building.

Keywords:

Quality Assurance, Accreditation, self-assessment, self-evaluation, quality indicator, internal quality assurance, instrument.