International Journal of Leadership in Education

Theory and Practice

ISSN: 1360-3124 (Print) 1464-5092 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tedl20

Best practices for quality assurance in higher

education: implications for educational
administration

Romina Ifeoma Asiyai

To cite this article: Romina Ifeoma Asiyai (2020): Best practices for quality assurance in higher
education: implications for educational administration, International Journal of Leadership in
Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603124.2019.1710569

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2019.1710569

Published online: 12 Jan 2020.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2019.1710569

Best practices for quality assurance in higher education:

implications for educational administration
Romina Ifeoma Asiyai
Department of Educational Management and Foundations, Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria

ABSTRACT
This article is aimed at discussing best practices for assurance of quality
in higher education in Nigeria. Across the world, higher education
institutions strive to attain high quality and standards in all their
activities especially teaching, research, community development and
innovation. Higher education institutions of high quality and standards
are highly subscribed by the general public and such institutions have
recorded good public image globally. Quality assurance in academic
activities of institutions of higher learning is predicated on several
variables. This paper discusses the import of best practice in five key
variables for the attainment of good quality and high-standard higher
education in Nigeria. The paper argues that for the attainment of good
quality higher education in Nigeria, educational administrators must
give priority to the development of physical facilities and infrastruc-
ture, innovations; quality teaching, human resources, as well as curri-
culum innovation in line with market demand and the needs of
students to meet standards that are globally acceptable.

Introduction
Quality higher education is imperative for the re-sharpening of the minds of citizens so as
to enable them to make constructive criticism and meaningful contribution toward
national development. Through quality higher education citizens of any country can
acquire relevant cognitive, social, communication and life skills needed to improve
a nation’s economic growth, productivity and global competitiveness. It becomes
imperative for any nation to see the quality of her higher education as a matter of great
concern. Asiyai (2015b) had earlier noted that the transformation of a country’s economy
requires a sound education system. The quality of higher education in any country is
influenced by several factors such as the efficiency of the education system, the educa-
tional infrastructure in the institution, the quality of teachers and their level of commit-
ment, the curriculum and the quality of teaching. In developing countries it has been
established that deficiencies in institutional environments lower the social returns to
education (Hanushek, 2011; World Bank Independent Economic Evaluation Group,
2006). Akinmusuru (2009) opines that the best way of ensuring quality in higher
education in Africa especially Nigeria is for the management of institutions to lay more

CONTACT Romina Ifeoma Asiyai asiyairomina@yahoo.com Dr. (Mrs.) Romina Ifeoma Asiyai, Department of
Educational Management and Foundations, Campus 3, Delta State University, P. M. B. 1 Abraka, Nigeria
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 R. I. ASIYAI

emphasis on students’ learning. This is because students are key actors in the education
system that must be adequately refined and transformed so as to enable them to
contribute maximally to social, political and economic development agenda. Masino
and Nino-Zarazua (2016) note that the quality of higher education of a nation is
positively impacted with its’ economic development. It has been established that educa-
tion policies that enhance innovation and building of knowledge greatly influence long-
run economic growth and patterns of development (Becker, Murphy, & Tamura, 1990;
Lucas, 1988; Masino & Nino-Zarazua, 2016; Rebelo, 1991).
Higher education in Nigeria has the following aims:

● to contribute to national development via high-level training of her manpower;

● to help citizens to acquire cognitive and physical skills needed for them to be self-
reliant and make a useful contribution in the society;
● to foster the promotion and encouragement of scholarship and service to the
community;
● to help develop individuals’ intellectual capabilities of understanding and appreciat-
ing their local and external environment;
● To foster the inculcation of proper values needed by individuals to be able to survive
in the society; and
● for national unity as well as the promotion of national and international under-
standing and interaction (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2014).

Aims of this paper

This is a discussion paper aimed at illuminating the best practices for the assurance of quality
and high standards in Nigerian higher education. The paper discusses the concept of quality
and the place of the various quality assurance indices: namely, physical facilities and infra-
structure, innovation, quality teaching, curriculum innovation as well as what the school can
add to support and contribute to the assurance of quality higher education in the country.

Concept of quality
The concept of quality has been looked at from several perspectives to connote the sum of
characteristics of any given product service that meets established standards. For higher
education institutions quality must be attained in all the functions, such as teaching,
learning, research, community services, innovations, equipment, students, staff, etc.
(Asiyai, 2013). Higher education institutions which have the strong desire to attain
quality in their products must establish institutional cultures and policies to guide their
practices towards quality attainment. Mechanisms for quality attainment can be through
the development of minimum standards in students’ achievement, qualification of
lecturers, and facilities for teaching and learning, and supervision of instruction.
Other approaches for the attainment of quality are:

(1) monitoring of the activities of the institutions;

(2) capacity building of staff;
(3) professional development of staff through regular in-service training;
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION 3

(4) accreditation of institutions and programs offered;

(5) benchmark prescription and regular review and production of minimum stan-
dards documents (Adepoju & Akinola, 2007; Asiyai, 2013).

Physical facilities and infrastructure

Attaining excellent higher education in Nigeria will require putting in place facilities and
infrastructure, including information and communication technologies of international
standards and quality within higher education institutions in the country. Capacity
building of existing facilities and infrastructure is imperative. The physical development
of Nigerian higher education institution campuses to meet the standard of similar
institutions across the universe must be the priority of the government of Nigeria and
other higher education stakeholders.
Facilities are enablers of effective teaching and learning required for the total devel-
opment of students which when adequately provided and properly utilized in the process
of teaching, enhance students’ learning outcomes. Building excellent higher education in
Nigeria will elicit retrofitting and upgrading of existing facilities, including sports,
recreational facilities, lecture halls and theaters, tutorial room as well as the provision
of information and communication technologies in lecture halls/theaters. Facilities are
material resources that enhance teaching and learning, thereby making the process
meaningful and purposeful. Facilities encompass the entire school plant which admin-
istrators, students and teachers exploit, distribute or dispense and make use of to enhance
smooth and efficient administration of an educational institution, for the sole objective of
making teaching and learning an effective and purposeful experience (Asiyai, 2012)
Jimoh, Akinlosotu, and Ojo-Maliki (2017) see school facilities as embracing the totality
of enablers of learning which define an academic environment. The quality of teaching by
teachers in any institution is predicated on facilities available for the active engagement of
students and teachers in the process involved. The production of good results by students
depends on the facilities used in enhancing the teaching-learning process. Good stan-
dards and quality of any institution depend on several factors, such as facilities on
ground, their utilization, management and regular maintenance.
Several studies have tied students’ performance to school facilities, school environment
and conditions of school facilities (Adeboyaje, 2000; Alimi, Olu, & Adegbemile, 2012; Asiyai,
2012; Chan, 1999; Ikoya & Onoyase, 2008; Jimoh et al., 2017). The inadequate supplies of
facilities in any institution of learning often pose a serious challenge to the attainment of
success in the conduct of practical demonstration by teachers and students. In the area of
vocational education, Umunadi (2011) attributes the failure to attain quality teaching and
learning to the paucity of educational facilities. Similarly, Audu, Umar, and Idris (2013) notes
that facilities for effective teaching by teachers and learning by students are grossly inadequate
in technical and vocational institutions. Buttressing the situation in Nigerian Universities,
Iruonagbe, Imhonopi, and Egharevba (2015) noted that universities are dotted with obsolete
equipment and decayed infrastructure. While lamenting on the issue that no Nigerian
university could come up among the best 500 universities in the world ranking in 2018,
Akpotu (2018) observes that equipment, laboratory and library facilities, and infrastructure
are inadequate, obsolete, dilapidated, atrocious and nonfunctional. As noted by Adeyemi
(2013), not up to 40% of higher education institutions in Nigeria have functional laboratory
4 R. I. ASIYAI

fully equipped for science practical and that even the workshops for vocational and technical
education practical lack the relevant facilities. The paucity of facilities has undermined the
capacity building of tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Institutions of higher learning in Nigeria
must adopt best practices in facilities and infrastructural development in all the campuses to
meet acceptable international standards. Due to a lack of facilities and infrastructure in the
institutions, lecturers have continued to teach using traditional instructional methods where
students are mere passive listeners. At the approach of accreditation exercise by the National
University Commission, the institutions go out to borrow equipment and instructional
materials in order to get their programs accredited. This scenario is a big challenge to
attaining quality higher education in Nigeria.
Great commitment to the development of the physical learning environment in line with
acceptable standards internationally can be attained through upgrading and proper manage-
ment of infrastructure and recreational facilities. Complete overhauling of the entire physical
learning environment will not only make the environment more desirable but boost students’
interest in learning in such an environment. A conducive physical environment is an
important enabler of teaching, learning and research (Chin-Heng & Boey, 2010). Good
and conducive learning environment is critical if higher education institutions in Nigeria
are to produce graduates who are of sound reasoning, ethically and morally grounded,
demonstrate mutual respect, integrity and possess relevant communication skills.

Human resources and quality assurance

Higher education institutions all over the universe depend upon human capital for the
attainment of excellence in the delivery of academic activities. Institutions that strive for
good quality and standards must invest hugely in its human resources. Investment in human
resources for the attainment of academic excellence can be ensured by the recruitment of
high-quality lecturers and improved professional development of lecturers. Best practices of
human resource development in higher education must be adopted if quality must be assured
in the institutions. An institution possessing the high quality of teachers is a critical asset for
ensuring its effectiveness and success in students’ learning outcomes (Hanushek, 2011). The
quality of teachers or lecturers is a major element in defining an institution’s impact on
academic performance of students. Teachers or lecturers who are effective in teaching are
more likely to spend more time with their students in the classroom actively engaged in
academic activities. Emphasizing the imperativeness of human resources of good quality in
achieving excellent education system in Nigeria, Asiyai (2015a) re-emphasized Siew and
Sufean’s observation that tertiary institutions in the country require a critical mass of lecturers,
researchers and students who would perform in an outstanding manner to enhance good
quality and high standards. The lack of academic staff and overload of work for the few that are
available have been a serious challenge to quality attainment in universities (Yasin, 2010).

Innovations and quality assurance

Education is critical for the development of citizens who are innovative, enterprising and
creative in any nation. The education an individual receives determines his/her capability
of interacting with other people, solve problems and react to issues within the society. An
individuals’ creativity, intuitiveness, ingenuity and innovativeness is largely dependent
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION 5

on his or her education. Innovation implies teachers being capable of using new and
better instructional strategies that will facilitate students’ learning. When teachers
employ innovative learning strategies in the classroom teaching and learning activities,
students’ passion or zeal for learning becomes ignited and as such they would be able to
make progress in the innovation economy.
The attainment of quality tertiary education in Nigeria requires a lot of innovations.
Higher education institutions striving for good quality and high standards must adopt
creativity and innovation (Sivalogathasan & Abeysekara, 2015). Innovation embraces
transformation in practices and functions of tertiary institutions of learning. Innovation
in tertiary institutions is imperative for boosting the competitiveness of Nigeria econom-
ically. Innovation can be seen as the process of changing from standard practice to a new
practice for the purpose of achieving improved and higher learning outcomes.
Innovation in educational activities implies the use of new novelties in the teaching-
learning process. It is the application of an invention adapted or refined, for specific use
(Manzi, 2012). Innovation means lecturers adding something new to existing methods of
teaching, to make teaching more useful to the needs of students and society. Innovation is
cherished as a catalyst to academic growth (Gertner, 2012). Lecturers need to make
changes in their lecturing by implementing new designs, ideas, process and learning
environment that increase students’ tendency to learn. They must make students pass
through rigor by exposing them to tasks requiring critical thinking, synthesis of ideas and
effective communication as they attempt to find solutions to problems in their areas of
study. Rote learning by memorization of information to be regurgitated later must be
jettisoned. The best practice is the adoption of a philosophy of evidence-based education
as a critical construct to innovations and reforms in teaching and learning (Mezieobi &
Okwarachukwu, 2018).
Additionally, for best practices in teaching and learning toward attainment of good
quality higher education in Nigeria, lecturers should be innovative and challenging. This
can be attained by the use of innovative teaching methods such as concept mapping,
experiential learning, problem-solving, cooperative learning, collaborative or team learn-
ing, and information and communication technologies in the lecture rooms. Lecturers
must employ these new pedagogical strategies to make learning more interesting and
meaningful to students. Students should be intensively engaged in their learning through
interaction with fellow students and teachers in the classroom. They should be given class
assignments which will make them express themselves and foster their scholastic beha-
vior. Classroom time must not be used for simply transmission of factual information to
students (Blouin, Riffee, & Pollack, 2010; Mezieobi & Okwarachukwu, 2018). Lecturers
are innovative when they are able to discover ways of adjusting the learning materials and
the way the components are delivered to students (Kuboni et al. (2006). In the learning
process, lecturers must employ the use of questions to engage students and also encou-
rage students to ask questions, as well as take risks. In this way, students are excited to
learn and continue to love learning. Not taking risks is a pointer to academic failure.
Lecturers are enterprising and innovative when they regularly employ new and unique
strategies of reaching their students more effectively. Complete overhauling of the way of
reaching out to students is imperative for the delivery of quality education. There is also
a need for updating of knowledge of lecturers in line with new trends, so as to be able to
meet the challenges of the 21st century knowledge economy in line with global standards.
6 R. I. ASIYAI

The use of innovative learning pedagogies is of great benefit to students learning.

With the use of experiential learning instructional strategy, students are given assign-
ments which require them to be actively involved in practical exercises or simple
experiments. During such a learning endeavor, their five senses are engaged in learning
activities. Students understanding of concepts and topics becomes better when stu-
dents participate actively in learning and what they learn can easily be remembered
and recalled. Information and communication technologies when employed as
a teaching-learning strategy have been found to increase students’ engagement in
learning, make lesson delivery faster, facilitate collaboration among students, peers
and teachers, enhance the building of technology-based skills, allow teachers to indi-
vidualize learning to individual student learning style. With information and commu-
nication technologies, the design and delivery of education becomes easy by adapting
to the needs of students who opt for open and distance learning. Through the
application of technology in education efficiency is improved and the cost of delivery
of education is lowered. It also helps in expanding access to education. Through the
use of technology huge success can be attained in meeting the quality and high
standard higher education in Nigeria. Therefore, administrators of higher education
institutions in Nigeria should establish functional internet connection systems in such
a way that at any point in time, students and staff are able to access the internet
through the WIFI system.
Teachers are expected to be innovating in their teaching by being able to think, reason
creatively on issues and search for solutions to them when faced with numerous
challenges. Innovative pedagogies including play learning, embodied learning, computa-
tional learning and digital literacy have been identified as strategies for enhanced
students’ learning and academic achievement (Paniagua, 2010). Paniagua (2010) main-
tains that by relating teaching and learning to revolve round natural learning inclinators
like play, creativity, emotions, experiment and collaboration students’ innovative clusters
consciously promote their active engagement. Teachers can promote innovation in the
classroom by:

(1) encouraging interaction among students during lesson;

(2) promoting caring and horizontal relationships with students;
(3) allocating appropriate time to each activity in the classroom;
(4) allowing students to carry out experiments by themselves as they interact;
(5) regularly reviewing ones practices in order to identify and align better students’
creative, intuitive, imaginative and personal capabilities of innovative pedagogies
and;
(6) frequent use of questions to seek student engagement in their learning and arouse
their curiosity.

The institutional academic culture must emphasize students’ learning outcomes and high
standards of expectation. In addition, students need to be taught how to become
innovative through the teaching of soft skills. Teaching students soft skills of leadership,
independent thinking and creative thinking is imperative for students survival in the 21st
century ever-transforming the world.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION 7

Emphasis on quality teaching for quality assurance

Higher education management who strive for good quality and excellence in perfor-
mance must embrace best practices aimed at improving the quality of teaching in
their institutions. Quality teaching has been described as the use of pedagogical
research to attain good learning outcomes for students (Fabrice, 2009). It involves
different dimensions such as designing the curriculum and course content effectively,
application of varied learning contexts, use of well-adapted learning environment
and students’ support services. Institutions must establish different levels of support
for enhanced quality of teaching. At the institutional level, they should be a good
policy designed by the institution to guide practices on quality teaching. Institutions
should also put in place quality assurance mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the
activities of staff and students on a regular basis. Institutional management must
ensure that for programs they offer, lecturers of good quality are recruited following
well-established recruitment criteria. There is a need for newly recruited and old
lecturers to constantly be trained in order to upgrade their knowledge to align with
the 21st century knowledge economy. Regular updating of knowledge and skills of
lecturers will no doubt help to improve the delivery of services for enhanced quality
of the academic activities. Institutions must be ready to fund innovations for
improving the quality of teaching, learning and research. Adequate funding of
innovations will boost lecturers’ innovating capability and passion to continue to
innovate.
Lecturers can assist in assuring the quality by putting up initiatives aimed at improving
their practices. Lecturers adopt strategies such as making their classrooms learner/student-
friendly, employing student-oriented focus and ensuring that students are well-supported
in their learning. The curiosity of students must be piqued by lecturers during instruction in
the lecture halls. The use of different instructional strategies will make students love
learning. They should also encourage students to innovate by the provision of learning
opportunities where students are actively engaged in exploration in order to provide
solutions to problems. Lecturers must employ strategies that would facilitate their meeting
set missions and goals. Several reasons have been explained for institutions striving and
encouraging quality teaching as follows:

(1) to respond to the growing demands for meaningful and relevant teaching by
students and other higher education stakeholders;
(2) stakeholders’ urge to ensure that the education students receive from higher
education institutions will equip them with relevant skills for gainful employment,
self-reliance as well enhance their professionalism in the long run;
(3) to increase the efficiency of the teaching-learning process as funding constraints
become more stringent;
(4) to demonstrate that the institutions are reliable providers of higher education of
good quality while they operate with several stakeholders having differing
expectations;
(5) increased pressure of global competitiveness and economic efficiency;
(6) the internationalization of higher education;
(7) urgent need to produce skilled manpower to meet the 21st century challenges;
8 R. I. ASIYAI

(8) for greater civic engagement of products of higher education which is on increas-
ing demands.

Students of higher education institutions need to be adequately empowered with skills,

knowledge, values and competencies in order for them to be able to survive in the 21st
century environment. The institutions must adopt best practices so as to sufficiently build
knowledge and skills through different academic projects to suit working life. Learning in
higher education institutions should be aligned to link with industries and be rooted in
working life. In this way, institutions would be able to make some adjustments in teaching
and learning through the use of several pedagogical strategies like project-based learning.
The Nigerian economy has continued to remain uncertain. Consequently, the higher
education institutions have to constantly adapt with standards not being short-chained.
Improving the quality of teaching in higher education institutions, adaptability is mandatory.
For relevance and sustainability of the institutions, they must imbibe a culture of change in all
their practices.

Curriculum innovation for quality assurance

The term curriculum means all the planned and unplanned learning experiences which
learners are exposed to in school for their sound development (Duru, 2016). Curriculum is all
the societal accepted planned and unplanned learning experiences which learners are exposed
to in an educational institution or outside the institution for the attainment of established
goals and objectives (Mezieobi, 2013). Several studies have justified that curriculum innova-
tion is a right step for attaining quality assurance in higher education in Nigeria. The
attainment of quality and standard higher education requires regular review of the curricu-
lum in line with the needs of students, industries and society. The school administrator must
ensure that the reviewed curriculum is implemented properly by lecturers through regular
monitoring of lecturing to ensure that archaic methods of teaching are not used during
lectures. Asiyai (2015b) avers that tertiary institutions in Nigeria require relevant curricula
designed to meet the needs of students and employers of labor. She maintains that
a curriculum that would foster students’ thinking and reasoning faculty, communication
and problem-solving skills would be the best option for the 21st century Nigeria. According to
Mezieobi and Okwarachukwu (2018), quality curriculum innovation will result in quality
education. The just concluded reform in the curriculum of higher education institutions in
Nigeria by the National Universities Commission is purely for the purpose of improving the
quality of the institutions. The new curriculum which universities in Nigeria started imple-
menting during the 2017/2018 session is aimed at making what students learn more relevant
to them by aligning the course contents to the 21st century needs of students and the society.

The role of the school in supporting and contributing to quality assurance

The school has great and numerous roles to play in supporting and contributing to the
assurance of quality higher education in Nigeria. The institution ensures that internal
and external quality assurance mechanisms are established for the assurance of quality
delivery of services towards meeting the requirements and acceptable standards. The
measures include the establishment of policies and programs, resources and strategies
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION 9

employed for the purpose of attainment of quality. Internal quality assurance measures
include internal examination, facilities availability, quality admission of students, self-
assessment, and evaluation of students and quality delivery of services (Mbakwe &
Okeke, 2007; Ofojebe, Nwogbo, & Anachuna, 2015). Other measures for internal quality
assurance which the institution must put in place are ensuring quality examination
questions, provision of quality marking schemes, monitoring and supervision of aca-
demic activities, and smooth and uninterrupted academic calendar. Quality academic
staff is also identified as an internal quality assurance measure provided by the institution
(Igborgbor, 2012). To ensure quality, the institution further provides student support
services. Provision of student support services have been identified as a major quality
assurance input by authorities of tertiary institutions (Kaur, 2016). Quality student
support services can contribute to the emotional, social and cognitive well-being of
students and thus quality learning for quality assurance (Kaur, 2016).
The external quality assurance mechanisms which institutions employ are ensuring
external moderation of questions, scripts, researches and marking schemes. As a practice,
the institution appoints external moderators for each program. The external moderators
are usually experts in the various disciplines. In Nigeria, the National Universities
Commission (NUC) sets the minimum standards to be met by each tertiary institution.
The NUC is a regulatory body charged with the supervision of minimum academic
standards, deciding the establishment of new institutions and accreditation of pro-
grammes. The NUC benchmark for minimum academic standards in Nigeria is:
Staffing 32%, academic content 23%, physical facilities 25%, library 12%, funding 5%
and employers rating of performance 3%, totaling 100% (Ekpoh and Edet, 2017; NUC,
2012; Paulley, 2019; Raji, 2013).

Conclusion
This paper has discussed best practices for quality assurance in higher education in
Nigeria. The paper argues that for the attainment of good quality and high standard
higher education in Nigeria, key higher education stakeholders must lay emphasis on the
development of physical and infrastructural facilities, innovations, quality teaching and
quality human resources. Institutional academic culture must be robust to facilitate good
quality delivery and better students’ outputs.

Implications for educational administration

For effective administration of higher education institutions for the attainment of
high quality and standards, this paper has obvious implications for educational
administrators. Educational administrators must make infrastructural facilities provi-
sion of adequate quality and quantity, recruitment of high-quality teachers, imple-
mentation of robust curriculum and emphasis on quality teaching for enhanced
students’ learning their priority. In addition, innovation is at the heart of building
an excellent higher education of international standards. It becomes imperative for
educational administrators to vigorously pursue and employ administrative practices
that would catalyze the application of innovative instructional strategies in students
learning. Such administrative practices as ensuring provision of relevant textbooks
10 R. I. ASIYAI

and instructional facilities, regular monitoring of academic activities and prompt

provision of feedback to teachers, effective supervision of teaching and learning,
and provision of standard lecture theaters/classrooms and tutorial rooms as well as
encouraging constant engagement of students in their learning would be best prac-
tices for quality assurance.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Romina Ifeoma Asiyai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Management
and Foundations Delta State University, Abraka. She holds a B.Sc (Ed) Degree in Chemistry
Second Class Upper Division, M. Ed & P.hD Degrees in Educational Administration. She is
currently the Head of Department of Educational Management and Foundations, Delta State
University Abraka, Nigeria. She is a member of the Nigerian Association for Educational
Administration and Planning, and member Common Wealth Council of Educational
Management. Her research interest focuses on issues bothering on improving quality of education,
with passion for higher education studies. She has 48 publications (22 international and 26
national) in referred indexed Journals. She has attended seven international conferences and
eighteen national conferences where she presented papers.

ORCID
Romina Ifeoma Asiyai http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5259-5729

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