Title: Ensuring quality in higher education institutions: going beyond quality assurance system

Authors: Albert Justice Kwarteng

Addresses: Quality Assurance Section, Directorate of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance, University Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana

Abstract: This paper aims to review the literature and clarify the misconceptions of the related quality approaches and quality terminologies to portray the need to go beyond quality assurance system in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Africa. Evidence was attained from the literature concerns the meaning of quality concepts from books and articles obtained from Google Scholar, ResearchGate and online libraries. The paper traces the evolution of quality and quality approaches and explains how the total quality management (TQM) should be the focus in HEIs of Africa. The stakeholders' knowledge and understanding of the concepts of TQM principles and quality culture will enable them to have a clear picture of the quality management system in their institutions. We are in the era of TQM since the 1980s, however, HEIs in Africa are practicing the TQM with a feeble understanding of the entire quality concepts.

Keywords: quality concept; quality management system; QMS; total quality management; TQM; quality control; quality assurance; quality improvement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2022.124896

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2022 Vol.36 No.4, pp.569 - 588

Received: 09 Jul 2020
Accepted: 21 Jan 2021
Published online: 15 Aug 2022 *

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