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Education in Ghana - Improving Equity, Efficiency and Accountability of Education Service Delivery
Summary
During the last five years, access to education has radically improved in Ghana. Better quality learning and increased educational attainment across the country are an essential part of the economic development and poverty reduction agendas. Extensive growth seems to have reached a point after which the scale of education services cannot be stretched too far. At the same time persistent problems and newly emerging issues require new solutions. Attending to the challenges requires a new definition of performance by focusing on more equitable and more efficient services, more informed policies and strengthened accountability.
Executive Summary
Few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa show as much progress in education as Ghana does. A third of the budget, over 10 percent of the GDP is used for the sector and progressive policies have been pursued since the 1980s. Universal basic education has been extended and now covers 11 years including pre-primary years and enrollment has increased sharply. However, despite the progress, the education sector is under constant pressure from expectations that surpass the achievements. Communities and parents have legitimate concerns with sub-standard schools, missing teachers, botched exam and lacking services, and lack of facilities. Many children are turned away from higher levels of schooling, and many fail to pass final exams and to find post-basic or job opportunities. Delivery of education services will only improve in the long term if services become equitable, efficient, and accountable.
Chapter 1: Introduction, Context and Organization
Ghana is a politically stable and growing low-income country. Current trends in poverty reduction are encouraging and suggest Ghana is on track to meet its 2015 MDG target. The government has allocated about one-third of public expenditure to education and it spends about one-tenth of GDP on the sector. Children and youth represent a very large proportion of the total population in Ghana. About 20 percent of children fail to acquire the basic competencies which help to lay the foundation for cognitive development, better economic prospects in life and increase human capital. The supply of qualified teachers has not kept up with the growth in student numbers and the Government substituted unqualified teachers for qualified ones. As of 2009, the formal school system in Ghana requires 2 years of Kindergarten, 6 years of primary, 3 years of junior high school, 3 years of senior high school and typically 4 years of university level education.
Chapter 2: Educational Outcomes:Access, Learning, and Relevance
21.2 percent of the female population and 13.3 percent of the male population have never received education. The average Ghanaian female has completed 7.2 years of education, while males completed 8.5 years. Children in poorest quintile never are 10 times more likely to have never attended school. Ghana’s pre-tertiary system geographical inequalities tend to be the most important barriers, followed by, and closely associated with, socioeconomic disparities. Ghana provides higher pre-primary coverage than the vast majority of sub-Saharan countries. Completion rate in Ghana is relatively high but not high enough for achieving the MDG goals. Several interlocking risk factors influence the drop out rate, absenteeism, repetition, and other inefficiencies. Improvements in access put pressure on effectively addressing learning outcomes. High performing schools had over 90 percent trained teachers and 36.4 percentage points more trained teachers than low performing schools. Geographic location also appears to be a significant factor influencing achievement outcomes. By increasing education opportunities to develop needed skills, Ghana will be better equipped with the human capital needed to advance to middle income status.
Chapter 3: Inputs and Resources
Even with Ghana’s extraordinary support for education planners struggle to provide even a minimum of inputs to all schools. School facilities have a direct impact on enrollment figures and, their quality is known to affect school performance. The government’s efforts to construct new schools have not been able to keep pace with natural growth. Ghana has not been able to hire enough qualified teachers to keep up with the rapid expansion of enrollments and has had to rely on many new teachers without training. In addition, qualified teachers are not deployed where they are needed with urban areas and richer districts benefit more than poorer, rural areas. Teacher absenteeism, low instructional time and a short school year all contribute to poor learning outcomes. Since 2003 total expenditure on education has nearly doubled. Internationally, Ghana allocates a significantly larger share of its GDP to the education sector than do other countries.
Chapter 4: Sector Performance
This chapter suggests using the expectations that resources are used more efficiently, policies be realigned, and services are provided more equitably, to measure the performance of the sector and of the delivery of education services. The Ghanaian government has been committed to equitable access and has instituted a number of policies to achieve this goal. Geography is the strongest determinant of non-participation in basic education and is closely interrelated with low income levels. Private costs of going to school persist as a financial barrier for the most disenfranchised, so that targeted measures to decrease costs can make a difference. The Government has some effective economic and educational instruments that can help break major gender barrier by recognizing the age and grade where interventions are most needed.
Chapter 5: Higher Education
Ghana needs policies to deal with social pressures to increase higher education enrollment and economic pressures to improve relevance. Differentiation of the sector is also key to increasing access, widening participation, increasing relevance, and reducing government spending. Effective policies require change in the way higher education is financed and governed, how institutions and services are managed, and how quality is assured.
Chapter 6:Education Strategic Planning, Policy Options
The 2003 Education Strategic Plan established some key milestones, policies, funding and operational frameworks and monitoring arrangements. By 2008 it became clear that improvements in access had slowed down, learning results showed low quality and there were persistent equity and efficiency problems in the sector. The government, in corporation with the Development Partners launched a new Education Strategic Planning process for 2010-2020. Policy options include: linking government financing to performance and strategic priorities; targeting government financing to meet specific social, economic, or other strategic objectives; giving institutions more management authority, responsibility, and capability to run higher education effectively and efficiently; strengthening quality assurance, accreditation and performance monitoring.
Annexes
Here are the report Annexes which include an overview of the political and administrative system, and a map showing Ghana and bordering countries with the main cities and regions.
References
This section contains a list of source materials that were used, consulted, or referred to, in the preparation of this report.
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