Boosting enrolment and working to improve access and quality of education in Ghana

Universal access to basic education has been a key goal for Ghana, and the country has continued on its path towards full enrolment in basic education. During his State of the Nation address in February 2015, President John Dramani Mahama said that more children in Ghana were now attending school than ever before, with over 5.4m enrolled at the basic education level, compared to 4.6m in 2008/09. At the same time, Ghana has focused on improving and expanding its existing school infrastructure, particularly at the senior high school level through its Secondary Education Improvement Programme, launched in May 2014 and aimed at increasing access to senior secondary education in underserved communities.

The Ministry of Education (MoE) has also made efforts to tackle the long-term issue of teacher absenteeism. Meanwhile, growth in the private university sector has led to higher enrolment figures and improvements in the tertiary education system, though concerns continue to remain about the readiness of students taking the leap from secondary to higher education.

Indicators

Educational enrolment levels in Ghana have continued to improve, in part due to the success of government efforts, and the country has moved closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. The gross enrolment rate (GER) for kindergarten level increased by 8.1%, from 113.8% in the academic year 2012/13 to 123% in 2013/14, according to the latest MoE data. The GER at primary schools increased from 105% in 2012/13 to 107.3% in 2013/14, with the net enrolment rate (the proportion of appropriately aged children in school as a percentage of the population) rising by 6.2%, from 84.1% to 89.3%.

While the GER at the junior high school level decreased marginally, from 82.2% in 2012/13 to 82% in 2013/14, the net enrolment rate increased from 47.8% to 49.2%, according to MoE data. Total enrolment for those aged 12-14, both in public and private junior high schools, increased from 844,835 in 2012/13 to 883,463 in 2013/14.

Enrolment levels have shown the most impressive growth at senior high school level, with the GER for teenagers in the 15-17 age group increasing 19.3% between the 2012/13 and 2013/14 academic years, from 36.8% to 43.9%.

The latest statistics regarding tertiary education show that for the 2013/14 academic year enrolment rose by 7.1% for universities and by 3.4% for polytechnic institutes.

Higher Standarts

Despite the growth in overall numbers, there remain concerns about the quality of education. A report in 2014 by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) stated that over 70% of students taking the West African Senior School Certificate Examination in the 2013/14 academic year, a requirement to continue with post-secondary studies, failed to get the required grades for entry into higher education. Various reasons have been given for the poor showing, including overcrowding, issues with the curriculum, lack of resources and absentee teachers.

Regardless, performance rates have left many in Ghana concerned about the readiness of students upon entering the university system. “Children are often not being prepared enough for the tertiary system. What a lot of universities are doing now is insisting on entrance examinations as many students are not up to standard,” Matthew Tsamenyi, a professor at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), which set up its first programme in Ghana in 2009, told OBG.

Policy

Under the MoE’s Education Strategic Plan 2010-20, one of the main focuses has been on providing universal basic education to all children, but attention is now increasingly on the education children get once in school and the equitable education environment around the country. According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15,” Ghana’s educational system is below international standards, ranked 112th out of 144 for the quality of its primary education, 50th for the quality of school management, and 52nd for the quality of mathematics and science education.

The government continues to invest in the education sector. In the 2015 national budget, it once again saw a significant increase in its allocation, rising to GHS6.74bn ($1.87bn). This followed a bump from GHS4.41bn ($1.22bn) in 2013 to GHS5.82bn ($1.62bn) in 2014.

Gender & Access

Gender disparity in basic education has been largely addressed, with the country reaching a gender parity ratio, but access to adequate education in remote rural areas remains an issue. To try to improve access to education in rural parts of the country, the government began a Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme in 2014, through which out-of-school children can be enrolled in schools, with a goal of reaching 200,000 children by 2018, 50% of whom are expected to be girls.

To date, 24,117 out-of-school children have been enrolled, with the programme focused on the Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Brong Ahafo Regions. Another 100,000 children are to be enrolled in 2015, as the programme expands into the remaining six regions of Ghana. Some 10,000 junior high school girls from 21 under-served areas were also provided scholarships for the 2013/14 academic year under the Girls Participatory Approach to Student Success (G-PASS) programme aimed at improving gender parity.

Expanding Infrastructure

According to MoE figures, Ghana has 20,100 kindergartens, 20,502 primary schools, 13,082 junior high schools and 849 senior secondary schools. This represents an increase across the board from 2012/13, with a rise of 4.3% in the total number of kindergartens, 3.3% for primary schools, 5.2% for junior high school and 1.4% for senior high schools.

Since 2013, $75.5m has been made available through the World Bank under the Ghana Partnership for Education Grant (GPEG), a grant aimed at improving education equity and access in the country, to be put towards school improvements in 75 underserved districts nationwide.

Thus far, a total of 622 school buildings have been rehabilitated since the programme began, and in May 2014 the government announced that it was embarking on a $156m programme, again funded through the World Bank, to continue to develop infrastructure and improve educational resources at secondary schools.

The Secondary Education Improvement Programme is aimed at enhancing teaching facilities and the quality of education at 125 existing secondary schools, while providing 10,400 needy students with scholarships, as well as helping to train 6500 mathematics, science and ICT teachers.

Teaching Concerns

According to the MoE, 2014 witnessed a substantial increase in the enrolment of teacher trainees in Colleges of Education, rising from 9000 in 2013 to 15,400. This is partly a result of a policy to replace allowances with the option of applying for student loans. The government is targeting 95% of teachers being trained in the medium term, and is expanding educational facilities to try to reach this goal.

However, there is some way still to go. The percentage of trained teachers in public kindergartens is 54.8%, an increase of 6.3% over 2012/13 figures; however, with private kindergartens included that percentage goes down to 41.2%.

At the primary school level, the number of trained teachers is 70.2% in public schools and 7.8% in private schools, while at junior and senior high schools the rates for public schools are 84.5% and 86.7%, respectively. “More than half of teachers at the kindergarten level are untrained. At primary school it’s a little better but still a major issue,” Eric Ananga, a research fellow at the University of Education, Winneba, told OBG. “At the basic education level, there’s a huge problem of a shortage of teachers, and this has been the case for some time,” he added.

Teacher absences have long been a problem, with reports suggesting that absentee rates nationally were as high as 27%, according to official figures. In March 2014 the MoE set up a committee to address the issue of teacher absenteeism as part of its policy of “Zero Tolerance for Teacher Absenteeism”. In September 2014, after carrying out 11,594 surprise school visits, the MoE announced that teacher absenteeism has been reduced from 27% to 11%, with continuing efforts under way to reduce it further.

At the same time, there are some concerns that training programmes for teachers are contributing to high absentee figures. According to a 2014 study conducted by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), an Accra-based non-profit organisation, training programmes organised for existing teachers resulted in greater absenteeism in public primary schools on Mondays and Fridays, with teachers in rural areas especially needing to travel long distances in order to attend sessions, which are typically held at weekends.

Private Sector

Ghana has a long tradition of private education, and this segment has grown steadily in recent years, with enrolment up yearon-year (y-o-y). The number of private kindergartens in Ghana was 6608 in 2013/14, up 10.6%, while there are 6360 private primary schools, an increase of 10.8%; 4006 private junior high schools, a jump of 10.7%; and 293 senior high schools, the same number as 2012/13. Enrolment in private kindergartens for 2013/14 increased 6.9%, compared with 1.2% for public kindergartens, and in senior high schools it went up 7.3% (though public schools recorded a growth of 17%). At other levels, enrolment rates stayed roughly the same. At the primary school level, almost one in four students enrolled during the 2013/14 academic year now attends a private institution in Ghana.

Tertiary Education

According to the WEF report, Ghana ranked 106th out of 144 countries for tertiary enrolment. The government is currently working on several new higher education initiatives. In 2012 it established the University of Health and Allied Sciences and the University of Energy and Natural Resources.

Work on the main campus of the University of Health and Allied Sciences is almost complete, while the first group of medical and agriculture students has been admitted to the new universities. A distance education ICT facility was also established at the University of Ghana, through a $37.5m Chinese loan, which will link all 10 regional distance education centres.

Private players are also increasingly getting involved in the higher education sector. “The advantage of private universities is that they shift the burden from the government,” said CEIB’s Tsamenyi, adding that there are now more than 30 private universities in the country, in addition to the five public universities.

Churches in Ghana have traditionally been very influential in the private higher education segment, with the most prominent example being the Central University College in Accra, which was founded by the International Central Gospel Church and currently has an undergraduate population of about 8400 students.

Foreign universities are also getting involved. In 2013 UK-based University of Lancaster opened a branch campus, in collaboration with Ghanaian firm Trans National Education (TNE), and it currently has 225 students in its first two-year groups. Students at the campus are able to spend up to a full academic year in the UK during their course and receive the same degree certificate as one offered in the UK.

“There hasn’t been a specific push by the government in Ghana to develop private education; rather, it’s more that there has been an opportunity in the sector,” Raghav Lal, the executive director of Trans National Education Africa (Lancaster University Ghana), told OBG.

Meanwhile, Shanghai-based business school CEIBS chose Ghana for its first two-year MBA programme in Africa, having been drawn to the relative stability of the country and its strong educational traditions. The University of Lancaster launched a MBA programme in July 2015, with an initial intake of around 25 students.

“There are still a lot of opportunities in private education, especially in the high-end and technical areas,” said Tsamenyi. Ghana can also benefit from its position in the region, with students coming from outside the country to study. Approximately 40% of students at Ashesi University, one of the most in-demand private universities in the country, which opened in 2002, come from outside Ghana, while the University of Lancaster had 45% non-Ghanaian students in 2015, most of them from Nigeria. “Ghana is becoming a destination for higher education in the region,” said Lal.

Rebranding Polytechnics

In 2013 Ghana announced that it would convert its 10 existing polytechnic institutes into technical universities by September 2016, with the aim of repositioning them as key institutions for the training of a skilled Ghanaian workforce. Polytechnic facilities have existed in Ghana for decades, but they were only upgraded to tertiary status as recently as 1992.

“The approach we have to education in Ghana is focused on going to class and exams, not developing skills. The main issue we have is the fact that the education system is producing graduates not fit for the industrial needs we have in the country,” said Tsamenyi, who highlighted a deficit of skills in customer service industries, manufacturing, administration and marketing.

In February 2015 the MoE inaugurated a Council for Technical and Vocational Education Training aimed at strengthening vocational and technical education in Ghana through formulating policies for skills development across pre-tertiary and tertiary education, and in the formal, informal and non-formal sectors.

“Just changing them from polytechnics to universities is not a solution. The fundamental issue is the need for real investment and new labs and facilities,” said Tsamenyi, who believes the decision is focused more on changing the perception of polytechnics in society rather than improving the quality of education.

In 2014 polytechnics were allocated just GHS150m ($41.62m) out of a total budget request of GHS325m ($90.19m), according to the committee set up to work on the conversion. It suggested that the conversion process will cost GHS540m ($149.85m) a year for three years, with the total polytechnic student population increasing from 53,000 to 60,000 over that period.

Outlook

Ghana is on track to reach universal primary education, and with investments in infrastructure and teacher training under way, and the state maintaining its strong support as illustrated in the latest budget, there is ample reason to be optimistic about the sector’s prospects. However, attention still needs to be given to the quality of education and the readiness of students taking the leap from secondary to higher education.