The NaSIA Ghana Needs - Overhauling Pre-Tertiary Quality Assurance in Ghana

Educational governance literature establishes that the effectiveness of quality assurance is contingent upon the structural independence of the evaluator (Ehren et al., 2015; De Grauwe, 2007). In other words, an inspectorate's capacity to drive genuine institutional improvement depends entirely on its neutrality and insulation from executive influence. When we apply these insights to Ghana’s pre-tertiary education system, it implies that the structural design of the regulatory watchdog, the National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NaSIA) must give full autonomy to the watchdog.

Without genuine structural independence, meaningful quality assurance cannot exist. Without this independence, there can be no rigour. Without rigour, there can be no credibility and without credibility, quality assurance becomes a bureaucratic exercise of ticking boxes.

Yet, a review of the legal architecture governing NaSIA reveals a framework where this foundational independence is structurally compromised. Under the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023), NaSIA is mandated to be an autonomous watchdog, but the law has been structured to do the opposite. In addition to these legal vulnerabilities, the practical framework through which NaSIA conducts its institutional evaluations reveals significant systemic weaknesses.

When an inspectorate reports to the very Ministry it is mandated to regulate, it cannot credibly hold that Ministry accountable. When its board is dominated by government appointees, it cannot objectively evaluate government-run schools. When it must seek political permission before enforcing standards, it cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of children. This is the legal framework in simple terms, and it is the fundamental problem facing Ghana's National Schools Inspectorate Authority.

This article examines the governance challenges facing NaSIA, an inspection model that prioritizes performance over reality, and the resulting implementation and accountability gaps. This article also analyses the systemic consequences for quality assurance alongside international comparative models before proposing specific legislative reforms to rebuild the authority's independence and effectiveness.

The Governance Problem

The National Schools Inspectorate Authority was established under the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) to serve as Ghana's independent watchdog for pre-tertiary education. Its statutory mandate includes inspecting schools, setting rigorous standards, licensing all public and private institutions, and recommending closures for schools that fall below minimum requirements. However, a closer examination of the legal framework reveals that NaSIA is trapped in a structure that makes genuine independence impossible. NaSIA is institutionally embedded within the very Ministry whose service delivery it is mandated to oversee. This creates a fundamental conflict of interest that is legally wired into the architecture of Act 1023 through three distinct statutory compromises:

• Executive Capture of the Board (Section 90): The executive branch maintains absolute dominance over NaSIA's 11-member governing Board. Six core seats are reserved for state institutional representatives including the Chairperson, the Inspector-General of Schools, and delegates from the Ghana Education Service (GES), National Teaching Council (NTC), NaCCA, and TVET Service. Section 90(2) vests the sole authority to appoint the Chairperson and all board members in the President so the executive branch wields total control over the leadership of the watchdog. This structural saturation eliminates the boundary between the evaluator and the evaluated, thereby limiting the diversity and impartiality required for independent oversight of the pre-tertiary education sector.
• The Centralization of Disciplinary Power (Section 99): This provision further weakens the Authority’s position by granting the Minister of Education broad powers to prescribe disciplinary actions for non-compliant schools. In a properly insulated system, punitive and corrective measures fall strictly within the remit of the independent regulator. Under Act 1023, however, the consequences of regulatory failure are left entirely to ministerial discretion.
• The Ministerial Enforcement Veto (Section 89(3)): This section mandates that NaSIA must "consult" the Minister before recommending the closure of any sub-standard school. The Inspector-General is legally barred from taking decisive actions based on field data without first securing political clearance.

The systemic implications of this layout are profound. The implications give rise to questions about the reliability and capability of NaSIA in assuring quality in the pre-tertiary sector. For instance, the dual role of the Minister as both the operator of the school system and the final judge of its failures creates a significant, unresolved conflict of interest that reduces independent quality assurance to a structural impossibility. Until this structural defect is rectified, inspections and reports will remain performative exercises rather than meaningful instruments of accountability, and the children of Ghana will continue to be denied the quality education they are owed.

The Optical Illusion of School Inspections

The structural issues at the top of NaSIA are only half the problem. Below the executive level lies a fundamental flaw in how the agency conducts its everyday work. Rather than keeping schools on their toes, NaSIA’s methodology introduces an equally severe operational compromise. The inspectorate’s formal quality assurance process operates on a scheduled timeline. According to NaSIA’s published guidelines, the standard sequence of activities unfolds as follows:

1. Beginning of the term: NaSIA formally notifies the District Director and school management of the upcoming inspection.
2. Within two (2) weeks of initial notice: The head of the school compiles and submits pre-inspection visit information directly to the regulator.
3. Within three (3) weeks of initial notice: The Ministry of Education, District Directorate, District/Regional Managers of School Units, and Managers of Faith-based institutions coordinate to gather and examine past academic results and related administrative records.
4. One (1) week before the visit: The Lead Inspector takes charge, officially identifying the designated inspectors and beginning the formal inspection planning.
5. Just before the visit: The Lead Inspector holds a pre-inspection discussion with the school.
6. First morning of visit: The full inspection team conducts a formal, pre-inspection meeting on-site with school leadership.

By notifying a school at the beginning of an academic term and granting its leadership weeks to prepare, the object of quality assurance is lost. Instead of capturing an authentic experience of learners in school, the process enables a carefully curated theatrical performance. This elaborate forewarning fundamentally compromises the validity and reliability of the resulting data. The current methodology inadvertently rewards institutions that excel at staging a compliant facade, while systematically covering up the organic, everyday structural failings that students experience.

Under NaSIA's published guidelines, schools are required to provide a list of school stakeholders to be engaged during the inspection, including student leadership, parents, and School Management Committee or School Board members. This administrative requirement effectively grants schools the power to select who the inspectors will speak to, allowing them to present only those individuals who are likely to offer favourable accounts of the school's operations while shielding critics or those with genuine concerns from the inspection team. This practice compromises the validity of the inspection data, as the information gathered during these stakeholder engagements is filtered through the school's own selection process rather than reflecting the full experiences and perspectives within the school community. When schools are permitted to curate not only their facilities and records but also the very individuals who will be interviewed, the inspection ceases to be a genuine diagnostic exercise and becomes a carefully managed performance where dissenting voices are systematically excluded.

The Implementation Gap

With the current set up, the law forces the state to grade its own homework. The conflict of interest created by the dual role of the Minister leaves NaSIA structurally paralyzed and this has clear, real-world consequences on the ground. A look at the live data (Fig. 1) from NaSIA’s own inspection dashboard reveals exactly how this structural paralysis affects schools across Ghana.

An inspector's main job is to ensure every school across the country receives fair and regular checks. However, panel A reveals that NaSIA's current resources are heavily focused on just a few areas, leaving other parts of the country with little to no oversight. For example, nearly 40% of all inspections happen in just three regions. The Ashanti region receives 19.5%, Northern receives 10.1%, and Eastern receives 8.8%.

Meanwhile, regions like North East, Ahafo, and Oti hardly have any inspections. Each of these regions receives less than 2 percent of NaSIA's total attention. This means that if you are a student or teacher in one of these overlooked regions, your school is almost never visited so it is likely that poor conditions and low teaching standards go unnoticed and unchecked.

Fig. 1: Source: Compiled by Education Quality Ghana (EQG) using data from NaSIA Interactive Dashboard (Accessed 15th July 2026)

When NaSIA manages to inspect a school as per panel B, the data shows that most schools are struggling to meet basic quality standards. Out of 1,047 schools inspected, only one school achieved an Outstanding rating and 24% were rated Good. The remaining 76 percent fell into the lower categories with 563 schools rated Satisfactory and 232 rated Unsatisfactory. The problem is worse in the neglected regions. In the North East, 92 percent of schools were rated Unsatisfactory and in the Oti region, it was 88 percent. It is instructive to note that a Satisfactory rating does not mean a school is providing a good education. It simply means the school is meeting the bare minimum requirements to stay open. These inspections focused on whole school inspections, looking at overall performance and compliance with minimum standards.

There is an additional problem that makes this situation even more concerning. Ghana has a long-standing crisis of schools operating under trees and in makeshift structures. In 2011, there were 5,000 such schools, however, by 2018, the number had grown to over 5,400. The 2025 Auditor General's Report shows that today, 10,730 schools have no classrooms and over three million pupils learn under trees, in sheds, or in churches. NaSIA lacks the independent legal authority to directly enforce standards or close failing public institutions, and so its high-tech tracking system is essentially just documenting widespread performance struggles rather than resolving them. This lack of resolution points to a deeper systemic failure. It points to a breakdown in how inspection data is shared and acted upon. None of these schools meets NaSIA's standards, yet no sanctions have been applied. Private schools with minor deficits face immediate penalties, but state schools face no consequences. This inconsistency undermines the entire regulatory system.

The Accountability Gap

Another issue with NaSIA’s operations is the lack of public access to school inspection reports. While NaSIA collects detailed information about individual schools through its digital platform, these reports are kept behind administrative logins and private school portals. This means parents, communities, and the media cannot see the findings. In a well-functioning system, inspection data should be available to the public. Without access to this information, parents cannot make informed choices about where to send their children, communities cannot push for improvements, and the media cannot report on underperforming schools. Keeping these reports hidden shields failing schools from public scrutiny.

There is also a gap in legislative oversight. These widening gaps in quality assurance raise important questions about the role of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education. One might ask why the Committee on Education has not yet invited the Inspector-General of Schools or the Minister of Education to address these findings. The Committee has not yet used its powers to investigate these issues. Under Article 103 of the Constitution, parliamentary committees have the authority to investigate the operations of ministries and public agencies, providing a clear pathway to examine these regional disparities.

To be fair, the committee has historically favoured collaborative consultations and working visits over formal investigatory hearings. While this cooperative approach has its benefits, it may not generate the immediate pressure needed to drive structural reforms. Without more proactive legislative engagement, there is a risk that the critical data generated by NaSIA could remain a passive diagnostic data rather than serving as a practical catalyst for policy changes in Ghana's most underserved classrooms.

International Comparative Models

To rectify these structural vulnerabilities, Ghana can draw valuable insights from some mature jurisdictions that have established structurally independent school inspectorates. The design of these mature inspectorates is supported by global educational governance literature, which shows that when an evaluation body is buried inside the ministry it is meant to regulate, it falls into what researchers call the "inspectorial trap," with researchers demonstrating that for external school evaluations to drive actual quality improvement, the inspectorate requires a high degree of "perceived neutrality" (Ehren et al., 2015; Ehren & Shackleton, 2016), because when an inspectorate is structurally tied to the political executive, schools view inspections as political policing rather than technical diagnostic audits, leading to mere compliance theatre.

Let’s look at these inspectorate bodies.

In the United Kingdom, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted):

1. Operates as a non-ministerial department that reports directly to Parliament rather than to the Department for Education.
2. The Secretary of State for Education has no legal power to change inspection ratings, block reports, or interfere with enforcement actions, while the Chief Inspector is accountable to Parliament through select committees.
3. The Ofsted Board is appointed by the Privy Council, independent of the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State.

Baxter (2017) emphasizes that direct structural accountability to Parliament rather than a Ministry is the single most critical variable in preventing regulatory capture and protecting the technical reliability of inspection data from being manipulated to serve a government's political narrative.

In New Zealand, the Education Review Office:

1. Operates as a stand-alone government department separate from the Ministry of Education.
2. While it is broadly accountable to a minister, its Chief Review Officer is appointed by the independent Public Service Commission rather than politically by the Prime Minister.
3. The agency is legally empowered to publish school reports directly to the public without requiring ministerial approval. This setup reflects the foundational research by UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning led by Anton De Grauwe (2007), which studied school supervision frameworks across developing regions and explicitly argued that traditional inspectorates fail precisely because they lack the administrative autonomy to enforce sanctions or publish independent diagnostics without executive permission, rendering their reports toothless data-collection exercises.

In the Netherlands, the Inspectorate of Education:

1. Has operated with structural autonomy since 1993
2. Although the Minister of Education remains politically accountable for overall system standards, the inspectorate is physically, financially, and administratively separate from the Ministry, with its own ring-fenced budget that prevents the executive branch from using funding as a lever of control.

This structural necessity is illustrated in a 2025 longitudinal study by researchers at Dublin City University (O'Doherty et al., 2025), which tracked a low-performing secondary school over a 15-year period to determine whether external oversight truly yields academic progress. The study concluded that while school inspection is a catalyst for sustainable, long-term improvement, its efficacy depends entirely on the "respected position of the inspectorate" and the transparency of its findings, because for a system to work, the diagnostic data must be trusted. This reality remains structurally impossible when a regulatory body is absorbed by a political administration.

These international models share a common blueprint. The takeaway is that there must be complete structural separation from the Ministry of Education. This means the body that evaluates school quality should not be housed within the Ministry that runs those schools. Leadership appointments must be independent, with board members and the Inspector-General of Schools selected through an independent, merit-based body like the Public Services Commission rather than through political appointments. In addition, accountability should be direct to Parliament, with inspection findings and annual reports submitted directly to Parliament rather than routed through the Ministry, which keeps technical assessments free from political interference and transforms the inspectorate from a bureaucratic observer into a truly independent guardian of educational quality.

The above is not to suggest that the inspectorates in these mature jurisdictions do not face their own operational challenges. Ofsted, for instance, has faced intense contemporary criticism in the UK regarding inspector workload, the high-stakes pressure placed on teachers, and the psychological toll of its single-word grading systems. Similarly, New Zealand and the Netherlands regularly debate how to balance rigorous external oversight with the administrative burden placed on school staff.

However, the critical takeaway for Ghana lies not in copying their exact operational system, but in adopting their fundamental legislative design. Whatever operational friction these agencies face, they remain structurally capable of telling the truth because they are insulated from political interference.

The NaSIA Ghana Needs

To redesign the new NaSIA Ghana needs and to move the Inspectorate from bureaucratic compliance to real educational improvement, Parliament must pursue four essential structural reforms.

1. Legislative Reforms for Structural Independence

NaSIA must be decoupled from the Ministry of Education and made to report directly to Parliament. Under Act 1023, the watchdog is legally subordinate to the very ministry it is supposed to critique. Amending the law to make NaSIA report to Parliament will insulate its technical data from political editing. This ensures that the true state of our schools is made public, regardless of which political party is in power.

2. Eliminating Executive Veto Powers

The Minister of Education's veto power over regulatory enforcement must be removed. The clauses in Sections 89(3) and 99 of Act 1023, which force NaSIA to consult the Minister before closing failing schools, must be erased from the law. Regulatory consequences should be triggered automatically by objective evidence of non-compliance, free from political influence.

3. Transition to an Unannounced Inspection Model and Reform Stakeholder Engagement

NaSIA must abandon its scheduled inspection model and move to unannounced inspections. Giving schools weeks of notice only encourages a performance. The regulator should adopt surprise or short notice visits as its default approach, allowing inspectors to observe the authentic, day-to-day reality of classroom learning rather than a polished show. Valid and reliable inspection data can only be obtained when schools are observed in their natural operational state, free from the distorting effects of advance notification and preparatory staging. In addition, Schools should not be permitted to select which stakeholders inspectors speak to. NaSIA should instead select stakeholders randomly from the school community to ensure that the inspection captures a genuine and representative range of perspectives.

4. Mandatory Public Disclosure of Individual School Inspection Reports NaSIA must publish individual school reports for the public. The valuable information generated by NaSIA's inspectors is not useful if it remains locked

behind administrative logins. By publishing detailed, easy-to-read school reports online, parents can make informed enrolment choices, communities can demand better resources, and the media can hold local leadership accountable. Lasting quality assurance is driven by an informed and empowered public.

Conclusion

Quality assurance is not a bureaucratic paperwork exercise. It is not about filling filing cabinets with reports or checking boxes on a pre-scheduled morning performance.

Quality assurance is a moral obligation. It is the guarantee made to every child in Ghana in a private or public school that their environment is safe, their leadership is competent, and their education is real.

The Auditor-General's Report has laid bare the scale of the crisis: 10,730 schools, 3 million pupils, learning without classrooms. The inspection data from NaSIA reveals that out of 1047 inspected, 232 were rated Unsatisfactory. These are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of a deeper structural problem: an inspectorate that is legally trapped inside the very ministry it is meant to regulate.

For NaSIA to fulfil its mandate, it must be granted full autonomy, insulated from the executive branch, and made answerable to the representatives of the people in Parliament. The four reforms proposed which are accountability to Parliament, removal of the Ministerial veto, transition to unannounced inspections, and publication of individual school reports, would transform NaSIA from a bureaucratic observer into a truly independent guardian of educational quality.

This is not a critique of any government. It is a call for legislative improvement because the current design of Act 1023 creates structural tensions that would persist irrespective of which party holds office. Good governance is not contingent upon the individuals in power; it is contingent upon the design of systems that function effectively regardless of who holds that power.

The choice is clear, but it is consequential. It is either an inspectorate that must seek political permission to enforce standards or an independent watchdog that operates without fear or favour. In reforming this institution, Parliament will not merely be amending a law; it will be safeguarding the future of Ghana through the minds and potential of its next generation.

Ghana's future will be written in its classrooms and those classrooms deserve nothing less than an uncompromised guardian.

Author: Dr. Josephine Adusei-Poku, Executive Director of Education Quality Ghana and host of the TEDD GH Podcast. She is a specialist in higher education policy, governance, and quality assurance.

References

• Auditor-General's Report (2025) – 10,730 schools without classrooms; 3,050,808 pupils learning under trees, sheds, and in churches.
• Baxter, J. (2017). School governor regulation in England's changing education landscape. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 45(1), 20-39.
• De Grauwe, A. (2007). Transforming school supervision into a tool for quality improvement. International Review of Education, 53(5-6), 709-714. (Published as part of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning programme.)
• Doherty, M., McNamara, G., Gardezi, S., & Brown, M. (2025). Does school inspection lead to school improvement? A case study. Educational Management Administration & Leadership.
• Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) – Sections 89, 90, 92, 99. Education Sector Analysis (2018) – 5,400+ schools under trees.
• Ehren, M. C. M., Gustafsson, J. E., Altrichter, H., Skedsmo, G., Kemethofer, D., & Huber,
• S. G. (2015). Comparing effects and side effects of different school inspection systems across Europe. Comparative Education, 51(3), 375-400.
• Ehren, M. C. M., & Shackleton, N. (2016). Mechanisms of change in Dutch inspected schools: Comparing schools in different inspection treatments. British Journal of
• Educational Studies, 64(2), 185-213.
• Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) – Statements on education infrastructure crisis.
• Ofsted Independence Model – Non-ministerial department reporting to Parliament. Pre-Tertiary Education Act, 2020 (Act 1049) – Section 36.

   Comments0