Dr. Paul Kwadwo Addo Appointed as Deputy Director-General of IEPA

Dr. Paul Kwadwo Addo, Registrar of the Faculty of Educational Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has been appointed as the Deputy Director–General (Administration & General Services) at the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA), a UNESCO Category II Centre of Excellence for West Africa at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana.

He holds a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership and Education Specialist degrees from the Pensacola Christian College, Florida, USA, a Master’s in Educational Administration and Management and a Bachelor of education (Agriculture Science), both from the University of Education, Winneba-Ghana. Paul also holds a Post-Graduate Certificate in Public Administration from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Accra–Ghana.

Dr. Addo has participated in numerous professional programmes to build his professional acumen such as: “College-Going Identity and Students Success” from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Boston-USA; “Test Development and Administration” from the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, United Kingdom; “Test Development, Psychometrics and Research” from the ETS Global Institute, Princeton, New Jersey–USA;
“Online Design, Teaching and Learning” from Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences; Advanced Certificate in Communications, Certificate in Public Relations from the Ghana Institute of Journalism-Ghana, among others.

Dr. Addo has over twenty-four (24) years’ experience in educational delivery in Ghana at both the pre-tertiary and tertiary levels. Prior to joining the IEPA, Paul practised as a higher education administrator for fifteen (15) years. He was the Foundation Registrar and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi–Ghana from 2019 to 2021. In addition to providing leadership in implementing the new B.Ed curriculum in Colleges of Education (CoE) affiliated to KNUST, Dr. Addo assisted to develop MPhil/PhD/EdD and other professional programmes.

Before that, he was the Assistant/Senior Assistant Registrar at the Quality Assurance and Planning Unit (Vice-Chancellor’s Office), KNUST from 2009 to 2019. Dr. Addo assisted to draft policies for Quality Assurance, Peer-Review of Teaching, Admissions, Ethics, among others. He supported to develop systems and instruments for measuring performance including assessment of Provosts, Deans and Heads of Department, Performance Management System, KNUST Excellence Awards, Departmental Ranking, Evaluation of Teaching among others to ensure institutional effectiveness. He further coordinated accreditation and re-accreditation of academic programmes. In addition to the above, Dr. Addo’s over twenty (20) administrative position papers and memoranda have impacted the management of education at KNUST and higher educational administration in general.

Dr. Addo also served as the Head, Test Administration Division of the National Board for Professional and Technician Examinations in Ghana from 2006 to 2009 where he was responsible for quality assurance of Higher National Diploma (HND) examinations conducted by the Board. Prior to all the above, he was a Teacher with the Ghana Education Service from 1997-2006.

As a researcher, Paul was part of a team “National Quality Assurance Working Group (NQAWG)” which won $25,000 from CODESRIA Higher Education Leadership in Africa Program (HELP) in 2012 (BSE-CRT029/2012) to undertake a study; “Factors Promoting or Constraining the Development of Quality Assurance Practices in Higher Education in Ghana.” Dr. Addo has published journals articles in his area of expertise and has served as a
reviewer for the African Educational Research Journal, the Ghana Journal of Education: Issues and Practice and Ghana Journal of Higher Education Management among others. Paul has also authored chapters in books focusing on higher education. These are: “The Role of Quality Assurance in Building and Maintaining a Culture of Excellence in Higher Education: The African perspective” and “The Impact of the Less-Endowed Students’ Admission Policy on Access to Tertiary Education in Ghana” published in Going Global Book Series by British Council.

With this wealth of expertise and experience, Dr. Addo has facilitated numerous workshops and presented papers at international conferences in the areas of educational management and administration, policy analysis, quality assurance, curriculum development & implementation, institutional effectiveness among others. Paul was part of the National team constituted by the National Council for Tertiary Education (now Ghana Tertiary Education Commission) to develop the Bachelor of Education curriculum for training teachers for Ghana as part of the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL) programme with support from DFID. He subsequently assisted to write the course manuals and materials for conducting professional development sessions for all colleges and teacher education universities in Ghana. Dr. Addo is also an Academic Auditor for Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (previously National Accreditation Board) for inspection of quality practices and systems in Colleges of Education in Ghana. Again, Dr. Addo is a Team Inspector for National School Inspection Authority of Ghana charged with the responsibility of ensuring quality in education at the pre-tertiary level and Regional Assessor for National Teaching Council for Ghana’s teacher licensure exams. He supported the Association of African Universities (AAU) to review its questionnaire for the African Quality Rating Mechanism.

Paul is a Fellow of the Ghana Institute of Management, a Member of the British Educational, Leadership, Management and Administration Society, a Member of the Human Resource in Higher Education Group of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), an Accredited Member of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR), Ghana, and a member of the Ghana Association of University Administrators.

Dr. Addo is passionate about improving quality in education in general but more specifically improving the quality of educational leaders, planners and administrators and his research interests are geared towards improving quality in education specifically ways that seek to continually raise the standard of teaching and learning processes and total quality management.