British Council supports quality assurance training

Accra, Aug. 29, GNA - The British Council is providing support to the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the National Accreditation Board (NAB) to organise a 'Training of Trainers-Workshop' on Quality Assurance for Universities in Ghana.

A statement from the Council on Monday said a team of experienced persons, including Dr David Cairns, a resource person from the United Kingdom, would facilitate the workshop.

Dr Cairns is the Assistant Director, Development and Enhancement Group, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, UK. He has coordinated 80 institution-level audits and five overseas audits. He is currently completing Learning from Overseas Audit (to be published in December 2005) and is the project manager for the Outcomes from institutional audit series of papers.

The objectives of the workshop are to expose senior managers of the nation's universities to emerging trends in quality assurance and accreditation. It would enable participants to identify and strengthen the quality monitoring and assurance processes in tertiary educational institutions in Ghana.

Additionally, the workshop would train a corps of quality assurance trainers in Ghana to develop a body of resource persons who would facilitate the establishment of quality assurance units in Ghanaian tertiary education institutions.

Among the specific topics to be discussed at the workshop are: Requirements for Accreditation in Ghana; Strategies for Improving Teaching and Learning in Ghanaian universities; and Quality assurance - the U.K Experience.

The workshop would also afford lecturers from the universities, the supervisory agencies and experts from the United Kingdom a platform for sharing ideas and experiences on quality assurance and accreditation as part of the process of strengthening the self-assessment mechanisms within universities of Ghana.