The Global Quality Assurance Association organized its 1st International Convention on Quality Assurance and Transformation of Libraries in Accra, Ghana under the theme, “Shaping The Future of Libraries For Quality Service Delivery in the 4th Industrial Revolution Era.
This Convention brought together stakeholders from African Countries which include Zimbabwe, Ghana, Namibia, Malawi and Nigeria, to discuss the challenges, causes, solutions and recommendations on how to improve Libraries in their institutions.
Some delegates cited lack of infrastructure, low turnout or patronage by students due to the unattractive nature of the libraries, limited staff managing libraries, lack of staff training and development, finance or funding, limited or low Internet access and connectivity and the non-availability of a variety of E-resources.
Speaking during the event, the Director of the Global Quality Assurance Association (GQAA), Dr Violet Makuku said she will lead stakeholders in writing grand winning proposals because she observed that most of the issues had to do with funding. However, she quickly added that some of the personnel would need capacity building in Research Methods, Academic Writing Skills and Grant Proposal Writing Skills for them to write grand winning proposals. Dr Makuku also said that the GQAA is available to train librarians and it has the capacity to organize such trainings for librarians.
“The Global Quality Assurance Association bases all its activities, events and actions on research, “So our research indicates that there are major challenges with some of the libraries in the continent which include, funding, staff strength and staff capacity, marginalization and undermining. The marginalization can be traced through things like meagre budget allocations and in some cases, non-allocation of budgets … and so those are the key challenges which need to be addressed,” she said.
“Another thing that I am highly passionate about when I hear people talking about funding is to make sure that we think through practical solutions and what I am thinking of is writing grant proposals. There is a lot of money out there, money for different components which have already been submitted to me including Internet services and ICT infrastructure, space and buildings for libraries,” she stressed.
Dr Violet Makuku also underscored the need to address other issues like shortage of library space, library ICT-driven tools, ICT and Internet services. She explained that libraries needed to subscribe a lot to a variety of E-resources as well as making sure that those resources can also be accessed by learners, students and staff.
She, therefore, called on international bodies to support libraries with funding, especially with the provision of internet services, space, infrastructure, training and building the capacities of librarians amongst others.
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For her part, a Librarian at Accra Technical University, Florence Plockey also observed that library infrastructure was limited in the institutions, noting that most of the times, institutions allocate smaller spaces to be used as libraries with old books.
Another issue she raised was that a lot of people perceive librarians as school dropouts and the notion has to be debunked.
“Librarian, therefore, need to continuously develop themselves professionally and academically so that the society and their key stakeholders can perceive them in a better way. What we are saying is that our various schools should pay attention to libraries just as other departments,” she said.
About Global Quality Assurance Association
The Global Quality Assurance Association (GQAA) is a non-profit organization which started its operations in January 2023. The GQAA, which is based in Accra, Ghana, was formed to bring together people from all walks of life, sectors and levels in a bid to collaborate and work together to solve quality related matters. Its vision is, ‘To enable organizations to attain high levels of efficiency and profitability through sustainable quality assurance systems in a bid to create a world where the quality culture thrives.’
Notably, GQAA’s desire to be a highly valued organization in the area of quality assurance (QA) from the grassroots to the global level through assuring quality in all sectors, is vividly seen through its vision. In the organization’s name GLOBAL implies that the organization is embracing the whole world in a geographical sense, universal quality assurance coverage and considers all sectors (institutions, public and private, large or small). Quality issues do not discriminate but they affect every individual, nation, age group, people of different social statuses and educational levels, to name a few. Therefore, the GQAA’s broader approach to QA aims to go along with as many people of different responsibilities as possible, for the maximum gains of humanity.
The GQAA’s mission is, ‘To ensure consistency in the quality of goods and services through knowledge and skills sharing, institutional/industry/organizational assessments, monitoring, evaluations, consultancy, awareness and capacity building of personnel to be knowledgeable quality assurance professionals.’ This is against an understanding that quality and quality assurance are everyone’s business, hence the need to create such a platform where experiences, skills and solutions, among others, are shared among all stakeholders. The GQAA caters for both individual and institutional/company/organizational membership and benefits as opposed to organizational membership only, where other individuals fail to get direct benefits.
Ghana| Atinkaonline.com| Porcia Oforiwaa Ofori