Promoting Quality University Education in Ghana: The Challenges of Mentoring Private Universities

Private universities have become key partners in the provision of higher education in Africa. A remarkable feature of tertiary education in Ghana at the end of the 20th Century was the exponential increase and intense participation of the private sector in the establishment and development of universities. Most private universities in the country (57 of them) operate under the supervision and mentorship of public universities to ensure that the quality of their graduates meets the minimum standard of training set by the National Accreditation Board. This study sought to examine the quality of mentoring provided by the public universities to ensure the development of appropriate human capital in the country. Adopting the Resources Dependency Theory with the development of a model to assess the quality of mentoring relationships, the study concludes that the quality of mentoring offered is poor based on the scale developed, which is comparable to regular academic grading systems in the country.