Basic Education beyond the Millennium Development Goals in Ghana: How Equity in Service Delivery Affects Educational and Learning Outcomes

Abstract

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Basic Education beyond the Millennium Development Goals in Ghana:How Equity in Service Delivery Affects Educational and Learning Outcomes

“…Improving basic education quality is a central issue of education policy dialogue in Ghana. Recent lectures and papers from the academic community and annual conferences and reports facilitated by MoE highlight a growing and broad-based concern over the quality of basic education (Ampiah 2010;Anamuah-Mensah 2009;Akyeampong 2010;ESPR, 2012;MoE 2012). This debate has been informed by the growing availability of data on learning outcomes and reflects the long-standing commitment of MoE and GES to regularly measure and share results of learning assessments.…”

“…The purpose of the BECE is to determine whether or not a pupil is able to progress to second cycle education. As such, the BECE is structured so that approximately 60 percent of students each year obtain an aggregate 6-30 (Ampiah 2010). One criticism of such end-of-cycle exams is that they distort educational priorities and objectives toward the factual knowledge covered on the exam and away from higher-level cognitive skills.…”

“…[and] …The findings show that a full 60% of the teachers were not completely comfortable teaching in English." This concern is echoed by members the academic community in Ghana (Ampiah 2010).…”

Revisiting global development frameworks and research on universal basic education in Ghana and Sub‐Saharan Africa: a review of evidence and gaps for future research

“…There is consensus in the current literature (White, 2004; Akyeampong, 2009; Birger and Craissati, 2009; DeStefano and Shuh Moore, 2010) that interventions (formal and non‐formal), such as complimentary education programmes, improvements in infrastructure, school fees abolition, and school feeding initiatives have been largely successful in stimulating enrolment in Ghana and the SSA context in general. In Ghana, however, studies continue to show that many children, especially those from the rural north, remain out of school and are unable to complete basic education (Balwanz and Darvas, 2013; Dunne and Ananga, 2013). These studies point to issues of low quality and inequities in access as being among the biggest challenges to basic education delivery in Ghana.…”

“…The key take‐away from these studies can be summarised in two arguments: (1) despite the immense improvements in access, substantial increases in enrolment are still needed if the target of ‘universal access’ is to be achieved; (2) even if the best scenario of enrolment increases, completion rates may remain low and those who do complete may also receive substandard learning outcomes. Global efforts to provide basic education must therefore focus more on reducing equity gaps in terms of access, quality and learning outcomes (Majgaard and Mingat, 2012; Balwanz and Darvas, 2013; Spaull and Taylor, 2014).…”