Quality Assurance of Business Management Education in Africa: A Review of Current Systems and Recommendations for Quality Enhancements

Abstract

Quality assurance systems – the collections of policies, procedures, and practices for achieving and maintaining quality – are critical to ensuring the relevance and effectiveness of business and management education in Africa. Currently, stakeholders may assess the quality of business schools and programs through the national accrediting systems, rankings by media, and global accrediting bodies for business school. But these may not be adequate to assure stakeholders; the national agencies and commercial ranking systems are broad assessments of parent universities and are not specifically focused on business management units or institutions. On the other hand, the global accrediting systems may be the most effective means for determining quality, but only a handful of African business schools have achieved this feat. The adoption of global quality measures and assurance systems is needed to ensure the quality of business institutions and programs across the continent. Hence, an integrative framework of quality standards is proposed for adoption to help build the capacity of African business schools towards global accreditation, and to enhance the quality of business management education on the continent. Specific strategies for capacity building towards the adoption of the global quality standards are offered.

Keywords:

• quality assurance
• quality standards
• quality enhancements
• accreditation
• management education
• African business schools
• Africa

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are thankful to the reviewers of this manuscript for their constructive comments.

ORCID

Eunice V. Akoto http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0080-9427

Edward O. Akoto http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1064-3109