THE WORLD BANK
A seminar based on this paper was presented
by Sir John Daniel on 31 January 2008
External Institutional Evaluations of African Universities
John Daniel , Willie Clarke-Okah (Commonwealth of Learning)
and Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (UNESCO)
Introduction
The general issue that we address in this short paper is the renewal of African universities. We shall focus on this primarily through the lens of an institutional evaluation of the University of Ghana conducted by an international Visitation Panel in 2007. Daniel chaired this Panel and Uvalić-Trumbić, who was a Panel member, commissioned research within UNESCO in support of its work. We shall also draw lessons from an Institutional Trial Quality Audit commissioned by the University of South Africa (UNISA) from the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) that was organised by Clarke-Okah.
How can external bodies most usefully assist in the renewal of universities, particularly in Africa, that have suffered years of neglect and now face exploding demand?
Some countries, like South Africa and Nigeria, already have national bodies for quality assurance. For example, the University of South Africa faces an audit by the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) of South Africa's Council for Higher Education in 2008. This body has shown that it has real teeth and regularly closes programmes that do not meet its standards. UNISA decided to prepare itself for the audit by the HEQC by asking COL to organise a mock audit or trial run in 2007.
In Ghana the National Accreditation Board is less well established than in Nigeria or South Africa. The University of Ghana faces the general challenge created by a huge expansion of student numbers from 5,000 to over 25,000 in less than ten years with almost no increase in staff (Figure 1). It also experienced the specific problem of a high-profile breach of security in its examination system in 2003. The University decided to call in an international Visitation Panel to advise it on the general development of the University.
Figure 1
The Visitation Panel: Working Methods
This Visitation Panel (Figure 2), which the Vice-Chancellor set up on behalf of Council in 2007, was a distinguished group of Ghanaian and international specialists whose collective expertise ranged over all aspects of higher education. The Vice-Chair was Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities and a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana. The 13 other members came from Ghana and around the world: India, Jamaica, Nigeria, the UK, the USA and UNESCO.
Figure 2
The Terms of Reference which the University established for the Panel's work focused on three areas: Academic Programmes; Infrastructure and Resources, and the University's Administrative and Governance arrangements (Figure 3). The breadth of this mandate is a major difference between the work of this Visitation Panel and the normal task of a quality audit panel sent in by a national quality assurance agency.
Figure 3
Another major difference was that a quality audit team usually goes into an institution after having received a substantial self-assessment document from the institution. The Visitation Panel had no such document and one of its decisions was to commission such self-assessments during its first visit.
To carry out its work the Panel made two week-long visits to Accra, one in April and the second in August (Figure 4). These visits enabled it to meet the various constituencies of the University. At the Panel's suggestion the University also commissioned a special investigation into the Financial Administrative System, which was the source of particularly acute and pervasive problems.
Figure 4
During the last months of 2007 the Panel drafted the report online using Basecamp software, which proved invaluable. Daniel was the chief editor and can attest that drafting a major report online with panel members in eight countries is not an easy process. A number of issues on which panel members had differing views needed to be resolved during the drafting. However, the transparency of the process and the opportunity for multiple iterations produced a carefully reasoned report. The Panel made itself a rule to give clear and precise recommendations to the University by resolving its disagreements rather papering over them. The year-end deadline for submission of the report was met with a month to spare.
Highlights of the Report
The Panel produced a substantial Report, which runs to some 127 pages with annexes (University of Ghana, 2007). Figure 5 summarises the Table of Contents. Here shall note some highlights which are of general interest.
Figure 5
We shall not describe the background on the University of Ghana, except to show a picture of the University's Great Hall and a quotation from a current professor who was a student in the 1970s (Figure 6). These capture the great aspirations that accompanied the creation of this University and the fond memories that its early students took away from their time there.
Figure 6
The Visitation Panel was established because Council perceived that the University was slipping in its fulfilment of those national aspirations and in its service to students. All members of the Visitation Panel believed that the University could recover its pre-eminent role in the intellectual life of Ghana. Its efforts were directed to helping the University to achieve that goal. Many of the overseas panel members had previous experience of Ghana and of the University and knew something of the context.
Chapter 2 places the University of Ghana in its African and national contexts and we shall not dwell on this either, except to say that the Panel found the work of World Bank expert Peter Materu particularly useful. This chapter raises issues for the Government as well as the University.
Instead we shall focus selectively on Chapter 3, which is the meat of the report. It is in three sections, each devoted to one of the themes in the terms of reference. First, it looked at the University as a Corporate Body and issues of Governance, Management and Administration. Here we shall examine only three of these issues: the composition of the Governing Council; the Organisation of Management and Administration; and Student Representation.
This main chapter is entitled 'Analysis, Conclusions and Recommendations'. As that implies the Panel tried to analyse the situations it found, draw its conclusions, and then articulate them in the form of recommendations. It also gave examples of practice in other countries where it was thought relevant.
The following part of this paper consists of short verbatim quotes (in italics) taken from the analyses, conclusions and recommendations of the report.
The Council
The Panel's first finding was that the composition and role of the University of Ghana Council is seriously out of line with practice in other countries that Ghana might normally use as comparators. UNESCO helped the Panel look at this issue by researching practice in Australia and New Zealand and it also found useful guidelines in South Africa and the UK.
The Panel concluded that current good practice calls for a governing body of between 15 to 30 members, with a lay (external) majority of about two-thirds to one third, with a significant proportion of the lay majority brought on to the governing body through a nominations committee process to ensure that there is expertise in areas such as finance, property management, legal matters, and human resource management.
Set against such practice and against the emerging consensus about governance around the world, the Council of the University of Ghana is unusual in three ways. First, at 15 members, it is smaller than the governing bodies of many universities of similar size, where a figure of around 25 might be more usual. Second, the Council membership is mostly nominated by external bodies or drawn from internal constituencies. Third, and most unusually, a majority of the membership is from these internal constituencies.
Two of the Panel's key recommendations were therefore that:
The membership of the Council should be expanded to over 20 members and its composition should be substantially changed to enable it to play an effective role as the governing body of the University.
And that
The Council should have committees for:
Audit
Finance and General Purposes;
Nominations;
Physical Development
Curiously these committees, which in most universities would be committees of the Council, were committees of the Academic Board. This recommendation was not simply governance theory because the Panel concluded that:
...if, in recent years, the University of Ghana Council had had the role and composition that we recommend some of the problems that the University now faces, notably in its financial management, would have been avoided.
Management and Administration
We shall pass over the Panel's recommendations about the Academic Board and review its conclusions about how the University manages and administers itself.
The Panel found that the structures for managing the University, undermined by the managerial reforms introduced in 2003, have allowed the University, overwhelmed by student number expansion, to slide into a poor state of organisation and effectiveness.
It noted that in 2003 the then Vice-Chancellor introduced a new organisational structure...
Whatever the theoretical merits of this reorganisation it clearly has not worked. The Panel concludes that the Vice-Chancellor needs what in some universities is called a Chief Operating Officer, a senior officer who integrates the management of the many services that are necessary to the running of the University...
This reorganisation is all the more necessary because there are serious operational problems in the management of the Finance Office and in the physical maintenance of the campus and its facilities.
Essentially the reform of 2003 had produced a highly diffuse structure of accountability and responsibility with the result that things were simply not getting done.
The Panel recommends that the Council should give the Registrar the responsibilities of Chief Operating Officer with a mandate: (i) to integrate and professionalise the services necessary to the running of the University and make them work; (ii) to present a new administrative structure chart to Council and the Academic Board after consultation with the Vice-Chancellor and the (new) Policy and Executive Committee; (iii) to introduce modern human resources practices throughout the institution so that the operating units are empowered and supported in fulfilling their functions; and (iv) to implement an effective and transparent management information system.
Student Representation
The next issue the Panel tackled was student representation.
It found that students are not well represented on the governance of the University particularly in areas where academic matters are discussed. They are not satisfied with the constitutional role of the Dean of Students and wish to represent themselves in discussions with the university authorities.
On this issue UNESCO conducted some research amongst the universities of Europe from which the Panel noted:
The almost universal Western practice of student involvement in University governance structures because they are universities' key stakeholders. As payment of tuition fees becomes more and more universal this pressure for taking account of students' views will only increase. The major strategic committees of the University should not be dealing with detail of student examination results and staff promotions - agenda items which are cited as a reason for excluding students from these bodies
So the Panel recommends:
That the University introduces student representation on the Council, the Academic Board, the Faculty Boards and committees of these bodies as appropriate.
Academic Programmes
We shall say little about the Panel's findings on the University as an Academic Institution. Although this is the core of the University's work, academic quality assurance is increasingly well-trodden territory.
Probably the most useful thing the Panel did on the academic side was to launch a process of departmental self assessment. These self-assessments began after its first visit and over sixty departments had reported by the time the Panel came back. Some reports were good and professional, others were lamentably superficial. However, this process drew the attention of the entire university community to the Panel's work and will continue.
The main reason for the degradation of the University that led to the setting up of the Visitation Panel was and is an Enrolment Explosion.
The enrolment explosion is the cause of many of the University's problems. The Panel recommends reducing the intake of students; placing a limit on class size; balancing student numbers with physical infrastructure and faculty capacity; introducing stronger policy for gender parity; promoting distance learning to absorb continuing demand; and expanding Accra City Campus.
It was clear that the enrolments on the main campus have to be capped and reduced. There is simply not enough water for the numbers now on campus and, as a consequence, at least one of the student residences was an epidemic waiting to break out. We note that the University has already taken action on that problem.
However, given the pressure of demand for tertiary education in Africa it would not have been responsible for the Panel simply to recommend cutting numbers. This motivated its recommendations about distance learning and expanding off-campus sites. Ghana has since decided to create an open university that will begin operations towards the end of 2008.
Infrastructure and Resources
Finally, on Infrastructure and Resources the Panel looked at 12 issues (Figure 7). Because its seriousness far outweighs all the others, we shall note only on the first, the Financial Administrative System.
The Investigating Team is sorry to find that the financial administrative system at the University of Ghana is in a very bad state, is not providing anything approaching the services needed by the University, and needs radical change.
The Team concluded that the Finance Office needs new leadership as soon as possible. The current direction of the Office's work is wrong.
But also that the ITS financial software can be made to serve the University's needs, and probably serve them well, so should be retained.
It urges that Budgeting, reporting and accounting by the Finance Office has to be transformed by new practices, so that the University's financial position and prospects are understood at all levels of management.
The Team's Report has a series of detailed recommendations about how to transform a bad situation.
But there is some good news. Most institutions with such weaknesses in financial management find they have a big hole in the budget. Instead, the University of Ghana has significant unspent balances - which could be harnessed to the agenda for change.
Figure 7
Concluding Remarks
These are some of the highlights of the report of the Visitation Panel. The University Council deliberated on the report in January 2008 and some recommendations are already being implemented.
To conclude we shall comment in two ways. First, we note the relevance of the issues we have highlighted at the University of Ghana to the wider context of the renewal of African universities. Second, we shall reflect on the process of visitation itself.
Our summary of the Panel's report has focused on issues of governance, management, student representation, enrolment planning and financial systems. This is not because they are more important than academic matters but simply because unless a university has robust and effective structures and processes in these areas it will not be able to undertake any process of renewal effectively.
However, the normal processes of academic audit and quality assurance do not usually address these larger issues of governance and management. This is one of the advantages of having a panel with a broad remit.
Indeed, even the Trial Institutional Audit Panel for the University of South Africa found that in order to be useful it had to go beyond the normal methodology of the national quality assurance body (Commonwealth of Learning, 2007). A key issue at UNISA is that although it is a distance-teaching institution with a quarter of a million students, most of the staff members interviewed by the Panel did not realize they were in the distance learning business. The Panel made recommendations about how to change this.
Finally, what about the process of visitation itself? For a large international panel like the Ghana panel to make two week-long visits to an institution is an expensive proposition and not a prescription that could be applied very generally. How could the process be made more cost effective? Clarke-Okah and Daniel (2007) addressed this question in a paper to the Second International Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa in Tanzania in September 2007.
Two changes could reduce the cost of a visitation like that to the University of Ghana. The first is to require institutional self-studies or self-assessments to be conducted beforehand. The panel would then only need to visit once. The second is to slim the size of the panel. Clarke-Okah and Daniel (2007) proposed that a panel of six members could be effective provided they were carefully chosen for their expertise in the issues likely to be encountered during the visit.
As regards the eventual impact of the work, much depends on the publicity surrounding a visitation and the intensity of a panel's interaction with the university community and its stakeholders. We believe that had either the UNISA or the University of Ghana reports been produced by individual consultants they would have had minimal impact for reform, even if the content of the reports had been exactly the same as those that these two panels produced.
There are two major advantages of having the study done by a group. First, if it is made up of respected figures, the panel's credibility ensures that the university community and the government take its work seriously. Second, a group can multiply its impact by splitting up and visiting widely within the institution. It is also essential that the university authorities signal their strong commitment to the process, for example by giving the panel an opportunity to present its findings publicly.
References
Clarke-Okah, W. & Daniel, J.S. (2007) Can Invitational Institutional Audits make a Cost-Effective Contribution to Quality Enhancement? Paper presented to the Second International Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa, Dar es Salaam, 17-19 September.
www.col.org/resources/speeches/2007presentations/Pages/2007-09-19.aspx
Commonwealth of Learning (2007) Institutional Trial Quality Audit of the University of South Africa, Vancouver, 79 pp.
University of Ghana (2007) Report of the Visitation Panel to the University of Ghana, Legon, 127 pp. www.col.org/GhanaVisitation