Agenda to adoption: understanding the mechanisms driving fee-free policy development in Sub-Saharan Africa through policy change frameworks

Abstract

Policy change frameworks are commonly used to understand policy development processes. However, few studies have attempted to apply these frameworks to the recent popular fee-free policy education at the high school level in Sub-Saharan Africa. Investigating fee-free policy development through policy change frameworks can assist both in identifying the genesis of past policies, including who the important actors are, how issues are framed and problematised, and how specific solutions are designed, as well as how to interpret unfolding policies. In this article, we review three prominent policy change frameworks: Baumgartner and Jones’ “punctuated equilibrium framework,” Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith’s “advocacy coalition framework,” and Kingdon’s “multiple streams framework.” After reviewing the frameworks, we apply them to two fee-free policies in Ghana which are Progressive Free Senior High School and Free Senior High School policies to understand the drivers of fee-free policy change. From the socio-political background, three main concepts were derived from these policy change frameworks deducing from the basic assumptions of these theories. They are domestic politics, political and policy entrepreneurs, and socio-economic dynamics. The results show that fee-free policies are largely driven by domestic politics and political and policy entrepreneurs in political executive positions. Factors under socio-economic dynamics are only scope conditions that are not significant to trigger the adoption of a fee-free policy.