Introduction
The Ministry of Education in Ghana aims to ensure accessible and high-quality education for all. Despite recent reforms, challenges in providing equal opportunities for quality education persist, particularly for the rural poor. This feature highlights the impact of educating the rural poor at a fee, the need for targeted STEM education, and the role of private edu-businesses in exacerbating the inequality gap.
What the Law Says
The Ministry of Education’s main goal according to its Mission statement, is to ensure accessible and high-quality education for all in Ghana. This is achieved through policy formulation, coordination, monitoring, and evaluation, with a focus on meeting labor market demands, enhancing human development, and promoting national integration.
In recent years, the ministry has embarked on several reforms to realize these goals. One critical step was to give the reforms a legal framework by enacting two laws. The Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 saw the creation of new agencies such as the National Teaching Council, National Schools Inspectorate Authority, Council for Technical Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), National Council for Curriculum Assessment, Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, and the Pre-tertiary Education Act, 2020 that provided the legal framework for Pre-tertiary education.
Through COTVET the ministry is implementing STEM education aimed at giving the students 21st century skills that would position them for the world of work and entrepreneurship.
Whereas these reforms are well intended and substantial funds are being committed to them, the ministry has sadly failed to create a conducive learning environment and the needed investment to create equal opportunities for all, as stated in its mission.
Challenges in Education Reforms
- Inadequate Resource Allocation: Despite significant investments, the expenditure on education reforms lacks proper targeting and inclusivity, hindering the creation of a conducive learning environment and equal opportunities for all learners.
Inadequate education financing regimes contribute to limitations in access to quality public basic education, impacting learning outcomes in public schools. Teaching and learning in the 21st century requires giving learners opportunities to explore and identify where they fit in society and the job market. Furniture, textbooks, and STEM laboratories appear to be far from reach for Ghanaian learners.
- Limited Access to Quality Education: Quality education remains a significant challenge for the rural and urban poor due to denial of access and lack of professional teachers. Teacher motivation remains the least among public sector workers and this discourages trained teachers from moving to teach at public schools in rural communities.
- 3. Unequal Targeting: Ghana suffers from Holistic Quality Equitable Education Delivery due to unbalanced targeting of resources to the entire public school architecture. It is worrying when the reforms in STEM education target very few privileged learners in schools in urban areas, leaving out the poor and marginalized children.
The gap these challenges create is being exploited by private Educational business operators known as Edu-business operators who mushroom sub-standard low-fee-for-profit schools. Surprisingly, the Ministry of Education has not been able to appraise itself sufficiently to appreciate the resource and infrastructure deficit challenge in order to request the necessary allocations.
The Case of Private Edu-businesses
Basic education is gradually being taken over by the private sector. Much as the law permits properly registered tax-paying private schools to operate, we must be mindful of the fact that no matter how low the fees are, several million rural and urban children are still unable to afford them.
– Sub-standard Low-Fee-for-Profit Schools: Private edu-business operators take advantage of the gap created by education challenges, operating sub-standard, low-fee schools, further deepening the inequality gap. In recent times, their target has been the rural and urban slums dwellers.
– Exploitation of Market Demand Surveys: Private sector marketing, particularly in rural and urban slum areas, promotes private education as the best option, leading to increased enrollment in private schools. IDA Foundation, through Global Partnership for Education, published a study titled ‘‘The role of non-state schools in paving the way to universal basic education’’ which sought to mislead our duty bearers to create opportunities for the private sector to increase its participation in basic education delivery, to free the state of financial burden. Unfortunately, instead of acting on its mandate to ensure compliance of these private schools, The National Schools Inspectorate Authority sees their existence as an opportunity to generate much-needed internally generated funds.
– Impact on National Productivity: The increasing privatization of basic education results in a lack of access for millions of rural and urban children, hindering the development of a skilled human resource capital needed for economic growth.
Call to Action
- Enhanced Funding and Infrastructure: The Ministry of Finance is urged to increase funding for education by de-capping the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), enabling the expansion of educational infrastructure and the improvement of existing schools to meet the demands of the 21st-century job market.
- Timely release of Capitation Grant: The Ministry of Finance is urged to take steps to increase the capitation grant and make provisions to pay the grant at the beginning of the school term in order that schools are equipped to optimize teaching and learning from when school begins.
- Curriculum Re-evaluation: The National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA) should reassess the curriculum to emphasize 70 percent (70%) hard skill development and 30 percent (30%) soft skill development, aligning education with current job market requirements. CAPCOE and partners believe that for major reform in the area of STEM education to achieve maximum output and direct cost benefits, it should be targeted at primary and Junior High Schools and ensure it covers all learners. The acquired skill and training, when built upon at the Secondary and Tertiary level, would have the potential to shape the behaviour and mindset of the learners to become critical thinkers and creators.
- 4. Ensuring Security and Eliminating Underprivileged Schools: Providing security for all basic schools to protect pupils and school property day and night is essential. Additionally, implementing a measurable time-bound road map to eliminate schools under trees and shift systems is crucial.
- 5. Motivating Teachers for Optimal Performance: Motivating teachers through competitive incentives will attract the best personnel into the service and lead to improved educational outcomes.
Conclusion
Addressing inequality in Ghana’s education system is crucial to foster national productivity and competitiveness in the global market. By focusing on targeted STEM education, equitable resource allocation, and the regulation of private edu-businesses, Ghana can overcome challenges and provide accessible and high-quality education for all its citizens, particularly at the basic school level.
By: Campaign against the Privatization and Commercialization of Education (CAPCOE)