**2. Ghana's tertiary education portrait and TNE context**

In Ghana, post-secondary education sector until the 1990s consisted of only universities offering undergraduate and post-graduate degree programmes, and the sector fitted at least a theoretical description of tertiary education. However, in the 1990s, polytechnics in the country were elevated to a tertiary status to train middle level manpower for accelerated economic growth and development because the universities were focused on producing top level managerial and academic staff and researchers but not middle level technical staff. Since then, other institutions have been elevated to tertiary status, and therefore, tertiary education in Ghana today is the umbrella term for all forms of post-secondary education. As a result, Ghana runs a binary tertiary education system made up of universities and non-university institutions [9]. The universities, hitherto, constituted the tertiary education component of the tertiary education sector in Ghana because they were the only institutions that had the mandate to offer and award post-graduate degree programmes. This has changed because currently eight out of the 10 polytechnics in the country have been re-designated as technical universities which enables them to offer and award post-graduate degree programmes just like the traditional universities. Instructively therefore, tertiary education (and by extension tertiary education vis-à-vis international tertiary education) provision in Ghana is for Ghanaian citizens and is intended arguably for their prosperity and increased productivity.

Presently, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) puts the number of duly accredited tertiary institutions at 298, comprising 151 Private Tertiary Education Institutions, 141 Public Tertiary Education Institutions, One Regionally-Owned (West Africa) Tertiary Institutionand Five Registered Foreign Institutions [10]. In fact, until the year 2000, less than seven public and three private institutions were accredited as tertiary education institutions. It is evident the most of the tertiary education institutions were accredited as such during the millennia.

Currently, signs of TNE partnerships are quite visible within the Ghanaian tertiary education system. Ghana has, for the past two decades, positioned herself as one of the major providers of quality tertiary education (HE) in sub-Saharan Africa. During this period, Ghana's tertiary education institutions (TEIs) have opened their doors to students and faculty of countries within the sub-region, notably: Nigeria, Cameroon, Guinea and some East African Countries. This trend has seen Ghanaian tertiary educational institutions (TEIs) develop as regional hubs of education. Current international enrolment stands at 3,207 students for public funded tertiary institutions and 11,978 for privately funded tertiary institutions [11]. In fact, the official website of the National Accreditation Board (NAB) lists the institutions that are in some form of TNE partnership with TEIs across the country. These include: Business University of Costa Rica, (Kumasi); IPE Management School, France (Accra); Edinburgh Business School (EBS), Harriot Watt University (Accra); University of Sunderland, UK (Accra); Swiss Management Centre (Accra); Lancaster University College (Accra); and Webster University College (Accra).

Whilst these provide some promise of the birth of TNE partnerships in the country, the preponderance of educational research evidence available points paradoxically to the state of TNE partnerships in the Ghanaian tertiary education (HE) as shrouded in obscurity. To put this rather succinctly and bluntly, the wheel of tertiary education policy development in the country to govern and regulate the sector generally grinds very slowly [11]. This has caused (and still

continues to encourage) dissensions among participants, employers and stakeholders of tertiary education regarding issues of quality assurance, governance, regulation and adherence to international best practices.

It is against the backdrop of these issues, particularly the lack of policy and research to govern and regulate TE, and the dearth of information relating generally to the state of TNE partnerships in the Ghanaian context, that the research study on which this chapter is based was commissioned. The intention fundamentally was to 'awaken' the Ghanaian TE system through research to get the right things done to bring Ghana into the comity of nations involved in the 'tertiary education as business' philosophy [1] to accrue the needed benefits for itself and its citizens. In this regard, the research on which this chapter is based has investigated the public policy environment of TNE in TEIs in Ghana, looking specifically at international education partnerships.
