Achieving Quality Assurance of Polytechnic Education in Ghana: The Role of Stakeholders

Quality assurance in higher education is by no means only an Africans concern. All over the world there is an increasing interest in quality and standards, reflecting both the rapid growth of higher education and its cost to the public and the private purse. Accordingly, if Ghana is to achieve its aspiration to be the most dynamic and knowledge-based economy in the Sub Saharan, then its Polytechnics should demonstrate that it takes the quality of its programmes and awards seriously and is willing to put into place the means of assuring and demonstrating that quality.
This study sought to assess and examine quality assurance of Polytechnic education in Ghana by specifically looking at the role of stakeholders in achieving such quality assurance. As a result two hundred (200) respondents were sampled from four Polytechnics with three (3) local industries from each Polytechnic environs. Fifty (50) academic and management staff were also selected from each Polytechnic to have a balance views from these stakeholders. The sample was constituted using stratified sampling techniques from five main strata (stakeholders) with each stratum comprising fifty (50) randomly selected students, academic staff and management. Questionnaires were employed to collect primary data from the respondents.
Together with the other secondary data analysed, it was found out that, there is a strong view that specific opportunities and support for students to attain their personal goals are not provided by the Polytechnics, they lack smoothing progression of its academic lesion plan due to frequent strike actions by the Polytechnic Teacher Association of Ghana (POTAG), which have a negative effect on the Polytechnic's interactions with its stakeholders. The study also revealed that there is no evidence of development of public information systems, which has led to negative perception on quality of Polytechnic education in Ghana.
It was concluded that the quality assurance level of the Polytechnic is only fairly good and therefore requires some improvement. As a result it was recommended that local industries and other stakeholders should not just offer sponsorship to the students, but also inject rigour of the real business world to help boost the quality standard of the Polytechnics in Ghana.