Quality Assurance Directorate

Introduction

Since its inception, the Catholic University of Ghana (CUG) has established a Quality Assurance Unit to ensure systematic, structured, and improved standards, which is a requirement for tertiary institutions. At the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year, the unit was upgraded to a Directorate. The Directorate is properly placed within the Vice Chancellor’s (VC) office and reports directly to the VC through the Pro-Vice Chancellor, who is the chairman of the Quality Assurance Committee.

The Directorate is headed by Dr. Larissa Agbemelo-Tsomafo as an Ag. Director, and she is supported by two staff members, Mr. Miracle Atianashie, a Research Fellow and Ms. Patience Osei, an administrator.

Vision

To lead a culture of continuous quality improvement and academic excellence that enhances student outcomes, embraces global best practices, and advances the University’s impact in Ghana and beyond.

1. Core Mandate of the Directorate

The Directorate is charged with the responsibility of supporting in the development and implementation of appropriate instruments, including assessment tools/questionnaires, guidelines and information packs to guide the University, the staff (both academic and non-academic) and the students. Quality Assurance Directorate coordinates and operationalizes quality assurance activities across the institution. The Directorate works with Faculty Quality Assurance Units to facilitate implementation, monitoring, feedback, and continuous improvement at the decentralized level.

1. Monitoring of Class Attendance: The directorate embarks on close monitoring of lecturers and students, as well as the availability of teaching material during lecture hours/times. The key indicators for the monitoring are regularity, punctuality, professionalism in lesson delivery, adequacy of teaching aids/materials, and lecture rooms. The objective of this exercise, among others, is to ensure the quality of teaching and learning in the University.

2. Students' Evaluation of Courses and Faculty: 

In order to ensure high academic performance, students in tertiary institutions are required to evaluate the courses, lecturers, and the faculty, as well as the learning environment at the end of every semester. 

3. Facilitations of the Accreditation Process

The directorate provides the needed support for the development of accreditation documents and facilitates the assessment and accreditation processes for both new and existing academic programmes for all departments/faculties in the university. The directorate also provides Management with the accreditation status of every programme run by CUG to ensure prompt management action and support for reaccreditation processes. The Directorate has been supporting the Registry and the Faculties by providing the needed information for institutional audit and accreditation purposes.  

4. Moderation of Examination Questions and Scripts

The directorate supervises the pre and post-moderation of examination questions and scripts for both first and second semesters to ensure high standards of examination questions and marking of examination scripts.

5. Monitoring of End-of-Semester Examinations: 

The Directorate ensures high-quality practices in the university’s examinations. During the examination period, questions are sampled for evaluation to improve the quality of examination questions.

6. Workshops/Seminars

The Directorate liaises with the Office of Human Resource (HR) to organize capacity building workshops to improve staff development

 Conclusion

The QAD of CUG believes that, it is not just because of the GTEC and other regulatory institutions' directives that we think of quality, rather quality should be a bottom-up approach, and it is a shared responsibility for all. Hence, there is the need for everybody in the University Community to support the Directory in achieving its core mandates. Quality is our way of life.