**10. Conclusion**

It is now obvious that the scale of quality assurance frameworks of the universities involved in this study weighs in favour of programme, and place receives the least attention among the three key operational areas of the universities as defined by the conceptual framework of this study. There is a clear indication of over‐concentration of quality assurance activities on pro‐ gramme areas such as teaching and learning, curriculum design, research, student admission, staff recruitment, staff development, and student support services. Even under programme areas, teaching and learning appear to take the centre stage of quality assurance activities. This gives an indication of imbalance with regard to the focus of quality assurance activi‐ ties in the universities. The over‐concentration of quality assurance activities on programme areas suggests that these areas have the greatest quality concern that must be addressed as a matter of urgency. If this is the reality, then a strategic quality assurance framework is being implemented but even then regular balancing is required to maintain the stability of the framework. However, the context information provided in the earlier section suggests that the current major challenges facing universities, and the higher education sector of Ghana in general, are limited physical infrastructure and graduate employability due to skills mis‐ match [2, 4, 15]. These challenges are, to a large extent, attributable to insufficient facilities and stakeholder involvement in defining and implementing mechanisms for achieving quality rather than core activities of teaching and learning [16].

The situation requires more strategic attention to stakeholder involvement and facilities in quality assurance policy and practice. More attention to facilities is needed to enable qualified applicants to be admitted and to support quality programme delivery. More involvement of professional bodies, employers, and alumni is also needed in situations of skill mismatch. Meanwhile, the findings of the study suggest that stakeholder involvement is even over‐ concentrated on senior academic and administrative members making it "business as usual." A strategic quality assurance framework must be pragmatist oriented in order to solve practi‐ cal issues. Over‐concentration on teaching and learning activities suggests unstable quality assurance frameworks for the universities which are not capable of achieving enhanced quality. Therefore, there is the need to apply the principle of equity in quality assurance policy and practice such that quality key operational areas that have been underrepresented in quality assurance policy and practice are given more attention in order to stabilise the quality assurance frameworks for enhanced quality.
