**Figure 3.**

*Respondents' level of agreement or disagreement about policies that influence TNE partnerships.*

*disagreed* and *disagreed* respectively that a particular policy regulatory framework has had any influence on their TNE partnerships. Conversely, Mean Scores from 2.51 to 3.25 and 3.26 to 4.00 show that the TEIs *strongly agreed* and *agreed* respectively that a particular policy or regulatory framework has had any influence on their TNE partnerships respectively.

The survey result from **Figure 3** shows that the policy regulatory framework in the Ghanaian tertiary education sector with the highest influence (Mean Score of 2.96) on TNE partnerships of TEIs in the country is the establishment of the National Accreditation Board (PNDC Law 317 of 1993/Act 744 of 2007). The remaining policies have had none or at best minimal influence on TNE partnerships of the TEIs because the Mean Score is less than 3.25.

The in-depth interviews corroborated the survey findings because most interviewees who indicated some level of policy or regulatory influence on their TNE partnerships mentioned mostly the National Accreditation Board (NAB), and in some few instances, the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), but even that they implied that this level of influence was limited to TNE programme accreditation only. This claim is evidenced by the following excerpts from the in-depth interviews:

*I think it is an area that I will say the NCTE and NAB have not really delved deep into. We realised that for most of the foreign institutions coming down, hardly do they have something to do with these organisations, which are supposed to be* 

*Mapping the Policy Regulatory Environment of Transnational Education (TNE)… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99933*

*checking them. At the moment, these foreign institutions have not been given any regulatory framework (Senior Officer of Private TEI 6).*

*Now, we do not do anything unless we get accreditation from the NAB and the NCTE and the affiliated professional bodies like the Nurses and Midwifery Council, Medical and Dental Council and Public Health and Allied Health Council (Senior Officer of Public HEI 1).*

*…If an institution and programmes are not properly accredited by the national accreditation law (PNDC Law 317 of 1993) and the subsequent Act of 2007 and we send our students there or allow their students to come, they cannot get our certificates (Senior Officer of Public HEI 3).*

*NCTE and NAB are aware of what is happening in our institution, and they regulate us in a way (Senior Officer of Public HEI 5).*

*We are subject to NAB in terms of programme accreditation but normally the ABE is being regulated by institution form UK (Senior Officer of Private HEI 4).*

Many more interviewees of TEIs made similar statements. Others even claimed that no policy regulatory framework, whether national or international, existed to regulate TNE partnerships in their institutions. One of the interviewees representing tertiary education regulatory bodies had this to say,

*It is not really regulated, we do not have guides and laws; however, we are developing a new TNE policy that has been presented to stakeholders but has not been finalised. For now, the foreign institutions have to register with NAB and the programme has to be accredited (Senior Officer of Regulatory Body 1).*

Another interviewee for one of the premier universities in the country agrees with this view. He/she captures it this way,

*I do not know if they are working on something, but as I said earlier on, there is no regulatory framework governing us (Senior Officer of Public HEI 2).*

Another interviewee of a regulatory body who did not want to mince words puts it rather bluntly and forcefully:

*No policy exists for TNE in this country as far as I am concerned (Senior Officer of Regulatory Body 4).*

One representative of a private universities in his/her interview session also adds that:

*…We only have memoranda of understanding for the establishment of such partnerships; meanwhile, everything should be within the regulatory framework (Senior Officer of Private HEI 3).*
