The relationship between university system and students' lifeworld in public universities in Ghana

Abstract

The university system and students’ lifeworld are the most important precursors for overall quality university education. University lecturers are expected to guide students in varied ways through the university system by offering them academic and career counselling, as well as moral support in order to help them develop the critical mind needed for contemporary world of work and citizenship. One way of ensuring quality university education is to thoroughly understand scientifically the relationship between the university systems in Ghana and students’ lifeworld. This paper, therefore, aims to understand the relationship between university systems and students’ lifeworld in Ghana as a conduit in ensuring quality university education. Habermas’ theory of communicative action and Michel Foucault's discourse analysis provide the theoretical orientation for the study. The qualitative research design was adopted for the study. Twenty lecturers and thirty Ghanaian university graduates from public universities in Ghana participated in the study. These participants conveniently volunteered to participate in the study via the internet and were later interviewed on telephone. The study showed that students’ lifeworld is colonized by the universities’ systems. It is therefore recommended among others that students be proactively involved in university systems operations as an important stakeholder in ensuring a functional university system. Further student-lecturer engagement has to be improved upon by urgently addressing the decreasing number of lecturers in relation to increasing number of students in public universities in Ghana.

Keywords: University system, University education, Quality university education, Students’ lifeworld, and Student-lecturer engagement