Conceptualization of Policy Challenges in Academic Records Management Strategies in Tertiary Institutions in Ghana

Abstract

Academic records and final achievements of students in many higher Educational institutions in Africa are becoming subjects of empirical investigation due to several factors. For example, the fluidity of the technology environments, the ubiquitous technological platform for recordkeeping and management practices coupled with human interface and the exigencies associated with the educational service delivery systems. Every effort of practitioners to ensure quality of products and authentic academic records systems have proved futile. This study therefore explored the typology of records management practices in tertiary institutions in Ghana and also presents a conceptual framework to explain policy challenges in management of such records. A descriptive research paradigm was adopted with a cluster sampling technique to select a total of 1,990 study participants from ten tertiary institutions across five regions of the country. This consists of 2public universities, 800(40.2%), 5 professional training institutions such as Colleges of Education, Poly techniques and Nursing Training Colleges, 635(32.0%) and 3 private universities, 555(27.9%).The study used inferential statistical approach for the data analyss.The results indicates that there is no national policy directives for academic records keeping and management practices and as a results every institution adopts its own unique policy for its records keeping and management activities and handle their records security challenges as criminal issues. All these have not solved the problem.