Evaluation of Effectiveness of Internal Quality Assurance System in Public Universities in Ghana

The study was to evaluate effectiveness of institutional Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) structure in Ghanaian public universities. The convergent parallel design within the mixed methods research paradigm based on the Context and Input levels of the CIPP evaluation model was adopted. A sample of 2,844 was drawn out of 125,799 staff and students of accredited public universities in Ghana. Simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used. Staff and students' questionnaire with Cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.81 and 0.80 respectively and interview guide for administrators of IQA were used for data collection. Data were analysed using mean, standard deviation and narrative approach. The findings of the study indicated that quality assurance in the schools, colleges, faculties, departments and sections/units in public universities in Ghana was fairly effective. Students' progression were fairly effective (X-bar = 14.66, SD = 2.26); and staff progression activities were very effective (X-bar = 9.63, SD = 1.83). The study concluded that most members of the university community are not committed in ensuring the building of quality culture in public universities. It has been recommended that the university authorities should make it mandatory for every school, college, faculty, department and section/unit within the university to design and make their IQA structure more functional.