Quality Assurance Practice in African Universities: Lessons from a Private Nigerian University

Abstract

The education enterprise and indeed businesses worldwide thrive on quality products and services. It can be posited that the success or survival of any enterprise is strongly contingent on the quality of its business processes and products. Information explosion and global competiveness have placed a compelling demand on educational institutions to enhance the quality of their delivery process and products. These clarion statements serve to justify the need for this study. The core research questions addressed are: What are the quality assurance models operational in the Nigerian private university studied? To what extent do the models meet international standard? How are the Quality Assurance models implemented? What are the challenges experienced in the course of implementing the Quality Assurance models? What is the degree of overall success in attaining and maintaining quality? The ex post facto, case study and survey designs were used in this study. Consequently, questionnaires, interview guideline and observation grids were among the instruments used for data collection. Data was analyzed with simple descriptive statistics and qualitative techniques. Some of the Quality Assurances practices/models adopted in the private Nigerian University were: National University Commission [NUC] Accreditation visits; Proprietor’s impromptu visits; Faculty Support Programme; Webometric Ranking Model, and Thomas Reuter University Ranking Model. Findings reveal that though Quality Management practice in the Nigerian private university studied was of world-class standard, there is still room for improvement.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2015.v5n2p251