Abstract
This paper seeks to understand the significant challenges of Ghana’s free senior high school (SHS) policy and the roles that non-profit organisations play in addressing them. Findings reveal non-profit interventions such as establishing new school buildings, providing teacher training, addressing inequality issues, equipping graduates with employable skills and evaluating the policy. Such public–non-profit partnerships can help the government achieve its vision of free SHS education for all young Ghanaians.
Introduction
Quality education remains the backbone of the socioeconomic development of any country. Formal and informal learning opportunities help stimulate a highly skilled and well-informed citizenry that contributes to a country’s human, social and economic development (Free SHS, 2018). As a developing country striving for economic growth, Ghana, since its political independence, has invested significantly in improving many facets of its education system through policy reforms, structural changes and interventions (Armah, 2017). In the early days after attaining independence, the government, under the leadership of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, introduced free education to senior high school (SHS) level in the northern belt of Ghana in a quest to bridge the poverty and illiteracy gap between the southern and northern belts. More recently, the Nana Akuffo-Addo-led government launched a free SHS (FSHS) policy in September 2017 to replace the progressively free SHS (PFSHS) policy introduced in September 2015 under John Mahama’s government (Abdul-Rahaman et al, 2018).
The implementation of the PFSHS policy saw the absorption of fees for 320,000 day students across the country for the 2015/16 academic year, where parents of the beneficiaries were exempted from paying certain school fees. These fees included examination fees, entertainment fees, library fees, Students’ Representative Council (SRC) dues, sports fees, culture fees, science development, mathematics quiz fees, information and communications technology and co-curricular fees. The beneficiaries were also given free meals. The FSHS policy targeted both boarding and day students. It covered all educational costs, including tuition fees, library fees, boarding fees, science laboratory fees, examination fees, utility fees, free meals for both boarders and day students, Parent Teacher Association charges and textbooks. It is worth noting that both policies have increased enrolment, improved quality through academic performance and reduced the burden on parents to pay their children’s fees (Abdul-Rahaman et al, 2018). Over the years, the percentage of government expenditure on education has almost tripled, leaping from 7.6 per cent in 1980 to 20.1 per cent in 2017 (UNESCO, 2017). Still, the government has faced numerous challenges in implementing the FSHS policy since its introduction in 2017.
Many of the remarkable feats in Ghana’s educational improvements have been achieved through public–private partnerships and, in some cases, private efforts. For instance, many non-profit organisations such as Pencils of Promise, Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) International and Innovations for Poverty Action play critical roles in ensuring access to quality education in Ghana. They build schools, award scholarships, distribute free learning materials, train teachers, evaluate new educational policies and equip young people with employable skills. Given the government’s persistent challenges in implementing the FSHS policy, these non-profit organisations’ efforts are crucial in ensuring its success. In the future, a mutually dependent relationship between the government and non-profit organisations will be imperative to provide free and quality high school education for all young Ghanaians. Therefore, this paper discusses non-profit organisations’ role in successfully implementing the FSHS policy in Ghana.
The paper contributes to the literature by explaining the complementary role of non-profit organisations in delivering a free SHS policy and how it sustains quality education in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Ghana. The paper also advances the debate and arguments on the role of voluntary sector organisations in reducing the burden on the government to ensure free SHS education through the provision of learning materials and the building of school buildings. In line with the role of non-profit organisations in sustainable development, the paper provides a robust case for governments in the Global South, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, to establish partnerships with non-profit organisations. Through such public–private partnerships, non-profit organisations could provide all young people with free and quality high school education.
This paper is organised as follows. After this introductory section, the next section focuses on the materials and methods used for the study. It then details Ghana’s senior high school system, and describes Ghana’s educational reforms and policies over the years since independence. Subsequently, the paper highlights the role of non-profit organisations in achieving free quality secondary education in Ghana using cases of local- and international-based non-profits. The paper closes with concluding remarks on why non-profits should be involved in implementing and executing educational policies and interventions.
Materials and method
This study relied on secondary sources of information to assess the role of non-profit organisations in implementing FSHS policy in Ghana. The secondary information was gathered through a review of relevant materials, including academic articles, conference papers, online news and press reports, and policy briefings from non-profit think-tanks in Ghana such as the Integrated Social Development Center (ISODEC) and the IMANI Center for Policy and Education available on the internet (see Table 1). The materials were identified through a combination of searches, key words and terms associated with PFSHS policy or FSHS policy in Ghana and the role of non-profit organisations. No date restrictions were imposed on the search because priority was given to the materials’ relevance in their contribution to the ongoing discourse on free secondary education in Ghana. Nevertheless, attempts were made to capture the most recent literature to provide the most up-to-date information.
Internet-based method
Literature that was not related to Ghana’s education system, particularly the PFSHS policy or the FSHS policy and the role of non-profit organisations in Ghana’s education system, was excluded. Nevertheless, to circumvent the risk of missing potentially relevant literature, reference lists of selected articles were scanned for materials related to the topic under study. Information, such as title and abstract, was reviewed for articles and other publications identified in the search. Selected materials that met pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria and were coherent with the topic were included in the review. The inclusion criteria were relevance (how the material contributed to the topic), authority (whether it was published by a reputable source, peer-reviewed or professionally edited) and currency (whether the material was still influential regarding the topic) (Browning and Rigolon, 2019).
The initial search criteria identified 203 articles from database sources (such as Google search, Google Scholars, ProQuest, EBSCO and JSTOR) and the websites of organisations. However, after applying the screening and eligibility processes stated earlier, 49 materials, consisting of academic articles, conference papers, online news and press reports, and policy briefings were identified, out of which 25 met the final inclusion criteria. Despite this, some scholarly works or information were used to support the discourse on Ghana’s educational policy and non-profit organisations’ role in achieving FSHS policy.
The materials were read thoroughly to extract relevant information. Pieces of information were analysed using recursive abstraction techniques (Leshan, 2012). In this regard, the relevant information was summarised repeatedly, guided by the key words and phrases already mentioned. Subsequently, the pieces of information gathered through the summaries were synthesised, interlinked and paraphrased to make them more condensed and coherent, being careful not to change the meaning of the information. The final review was a more succinct and refined summary of the relevant literature regarding the critical issues discussed in the following sections.
Ghana’s senior high school system
The structure of the education system in Ghana is divided into three phases, as summarised in Table 2. The first cycle begins with kindergarten at age four and ends with junior high school (JHS) at age 15. At the end of JHS, students take the Basic Education Certification Examination (BECE), which determines enrolment into SHS. The SHS education covers three years for students aged 16 to 18 years. As of 2019, there were 863 (562 public and private 301) SHSs with 837,204 students. There are 34,304 teachers in public SHSs, of which 86.7 per cent are trained (Abdul-Rahaman et al, 2018). Subjects taught in the SHSs are English, integrated science, mathematics and social studies as core subjects. Students must select elective subjects from their major programme of studies, such as science, business, general arts, home economics, visual arts and agricultural science. Students who perform well in the final SHS exam, the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), may progress to a tertiary institution, the third cycle of education in Ghana.
Phases of Ghana’s education system
| Cycle | Institutions | Age (years) | Duration (years) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Third | Universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, professional institutes, nursing training colleges | 19 + | 3–4 |
| Second | Senior high school | 16–18 | 1–3 |
| First | Junior high school | 12–15 | 3 |
| Primary | 6–11 | 6 | |
| Kindergarten | 4–5 | 2 |
Ghana’s educational reforms and policies
Since Ghana’s independence in 1957, various educational reforms and policies have been initiated by successive governments to build an educated and highly skilled population. The first Prime Minister and President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, expanded the educational system under the Education Act 1961. In 1966, Ghana’s public education system became a structure for almost 1,700 schools, enrolling almost 1.5 million children (George, 1974). In 1995, the Rawlings-led government initiated the free compulsory universal basic education (FCUBE) policy to improve education in the country. Under FCUBE, government funding covered teachers’ salaries, allowing education to be tuition-free in all schools, from pre-kindergarten to the JHS level. This policy was successful in many ways, making the country’s education system a model for neighbouring sub-Saharan African countries. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, Ghana has about 84 per cent of its children enrolled at the primary school level, with completion rates of about 80 per cent, both of which are among the highest rates in West Africa (UNICEF, 2008).
Despite these significant improvements in elementary education, SHS education is still behind regarding enrolment statistics. While the rapid increase in pupils’ primary education enrolment has increased the country’s demand for SHS education, the supply of SHSs has not kept pace. This is evident in Ghana’s demographic health survey data for 2014, which reports that among the 15–18 years of age cohort, for every 100 children in urban areas, 96 enter primary school, but only 16 transit to SHS (GSS et al, 2015). Although the SHS enrolment has increased considerably over the years, particularly from 2008 (Sasu, 2020), many low-income families still struggle to pay school fees, leading to high rates of senior high school dropout.
Consequently, the John Mahama government rolled out the progressively free senior high school (PFSHS) policy in 2015 to cover some of the education costs (Abdul-Rahaman et al, 2018). Guided by Article 25(1)(b) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the PFSHS policy sought to ensure that ‘secondary education in its different forms, including technical and vocational education, shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means, and in particular, by the progressive introduction of free education’. It sought to remove financial barriers that vulnerable parents face and improve access to SHS, addressing inequalities in opportunities to transition from JHS to SHS. It also aimed to improve educational access for students from underserved backgrounds and help those who would have otherwise dropped out at the SHS level to acquire functional skills (Dzokoto, 2017). In the 2015/16 academic year, PFSHS absorbed the school fees of around 320,000 day students across the country (Dzokoto, 2017). The policy covered about 120,000 boarding students in the 2016/17 academic year. The beneficiaries included students whose parents could not pay their school fees because they were either poor, HIV patients and disabled, or benefiting from the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) programme (Dzokoto, 2017). However, this policy remained only a form of partial funding for SHS. Student enrolment remained hindered by other cost barriers, inadequate infrastructure, poor tuition quality and gender inequity.
Due to these challenges, Nana Akufo-Addo’s government launched the free senior high school (FSHS) policy in 2017 to replace the PFSHS. This new initiative would entail zero admission fees, zero library fees, zero science centre fees, zero computer laboratory fees and zero examination and utility fees (Abdul-Rahaman et al, 2018). These included ‘free textbooks, free boarding, and free meals for resident and non-resident students’ (Ministry of Education, 2021). With an overall goal of achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Quality Education (United Nations, 2017) – the FSHS policy seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable education for all Ghanaian youth through four main ways (Free SHS, 2018):
removing cost barriers to education through eliminating school fees approved by the Ghana Education Service – these fees include tuition expenses, the cost of uniforms and the financial burden of meals and accommodation;
expansion of school infrastructure by constructing new buildings to accommodate the increasing student population;
improvement in education quality by providing free textbooks, training teachers and deploying teachers to underserved communities;
provision of an education that will arm students with employable skills right out of SHS if they cannot further their education.
Nearly 400,000 students enrolled on the programme’s first year, representing an increase in enrolment of 11 per cent compared with the previous academic year (Ministry of Education, 2021). While free quality secondary education for all is an admirable goal, the Ghanaian government has been widely criticised for a substandard implementation of the FSHS policy. Since its launch in September 2017, the programme has faced some challenges, including a lack of adequate school infrastructure, resulting in overcrowded classrooms. For instance, students of Vitting SHS and Kalipohini SHS in northern Ghana were reported to have been sleeping in the open or under trees due to a lack of housing to accommodate the policy beneficiaries (Myjoyonline, 2017). Furthermore, the FSHS policy focuses on inclusive and equitable education for all Ghanaian youth. It does not consider teacher policy reform to improve the quality of education. As Bruns et al (2019) argue, teacher policy reforms help recruit, train and motivate teachers best suited to obtain quality education in primary and secondary schools. However, in the case of Ghana’s FSHS policy, teacher policy reform exists on paper without any commitment by the education sector to train teachers for the FSHS programme. Due to this, the SDG of quality education cannot be achieved considering its equitable education and learning outcomes. Although Ghana and many other sub-Saharan African countries made significant progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015, education equality was questionable. However, statistics show the primary completion rate in developing countries increased to 89 per cent, that girls’ primary completion increased from 49 to 68 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 72% for males.1
To address the overcrowding challenges for SHSs in the country, the government introduced a double-track system in the 2018/19 academic year. This intervention places students on two tracks, such that ‘gold track’ students attend school while ‘green track’ students are on holiday and vice versa. While this ensures that no qualified student is left behind, opponents of the double-track intervention argue that it reduces education quality and affects students’ performance as they are left idle at home during long holidays (Agyemang, 2019). Research shows that the double-track system results in the syllabus’s incompletion, owing to the increased number of holidays (Mensah, 2019). Given the challenges the Ghanaian government faces in its attempts to roll out the FSHS policy, the next section reflects on the non-profit sector’s role in FSHS implementation and how this may be developed.
The role of non-profit organisations in achieving the FSHS policy
Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are an instrument of New Public Management (NPM) and represent the ‘relationship of shared risk between public and private sectors based on mutual wishes for the achievement of the desired result in public policy’ (Flinders, 2005). Ghana was among the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to adopt NPM principles (Haruna and Kannae, 2013). In 2011, the Ghanaian government developed a national policy to regulate PPPs (National Policy on Public–Private Partnerships). The Public Investment Division (PID), established by the Ministry of Finance, leads PPPs under the PPP programme. It is crucial to point out that the success of such partnerships hinges on their adaptability to different cultures and local conditions as well as their degree of community engagement.
Non-profit organisations intervene and assist in the successful execution of education policy. Non-profits have a non-distribution constraint (NDC) feature, an essential global requirement for non-profit tax privileges (Ghatak, 2021). This feature’s binding nature allows non-profits to gain a competitive advantage in earning the trust of the communities in which they operate. This is because non-profits concentrate on meeting the distinct needs of people or the community rather than their self-interest (Aveling, 2010; Flanigan, 2021). From an organisational perspective, Flanigan (2021) argues that power dynamics are inherent in non-profit human services organisations that determine what kind of services they will provide for people or communities and how well-serviced resources will be. Further, Flanigan (2021) adds that power dynamics among non-profit organisations create an unequal advantage in providing community human services as non-profit organisations ‘compete on an unequal footing for scarce resources and a limited number of possible constituents’. In the education sector, many non-profits typically have ‘demand-side’ stakeholders such as donors, community members, and staff directly or indirectly affected by the educational challenges they are addressing (Dzokoto, 2017).
Unlike private entities that are profit-focused, non-profit organisations focus and deliver on their mission of providing quality education for all children, regardless of their socioeconomic status. Even though education usually yields private benefits, well-informed and skilled citizens provide collective development benefits for the country. In the case of Ghana, some non-profits such as VSO International, Pencils of Promise, Innovations for Poverty Action and the Kosmos Innovation Center are contributing in diverse ways to ensure that the FSHS policy achieves a measure of success equal to or greater than that of FCUBE. These contributions include providing infrastructure, addressing inequality in education access, training teachers to improve learning outcomes, providing SHS graduates with employable skills and monitoring and evaluating the FSHS policy, as detailed in the subsequent sections. However, the development of collaboration between the government institutions in the education sector and non-profits can play a critical role in achieving quality education and improved learning outcomes as collaboration takes place ‘beyond the particular interests of one’s organization’ (Snavely and Tracy, 2002: 64). It is essential to recognise that non-profits operating in Ghana and other African countries play significant roles in addressing social needs and educational problems that governments cannot solve alone.
Providing infrastructure
Reports indicate that many students are forced to sleep in classrooms, and school authorities are compelled to convert libraries and science laboratories into makeshift dormitories and classrooms (Myjoyonline, 2017). Thus, students cannot access quality books to improve their reading skills and do not get opportunities to translate scientific theory into practical skills. As a 501c (3) non-profit dedicated to improving education in developing countries, Pencils of Promise has built over 158 schools and directly impacted 42,098 students in 133 rural communities in Ghana (Pencils of Promise, 2021). The organisation works with local governments and education officials through PPPs to identify potential partner communities with a high need for safe and reliable school buildings. The government of Ghana could leverage this partnership model and work with Pencils of Promise to build new schools in rural communities to implement the FSHS initiative. Collaborations with private schools, such as those established by non-profits such as The Akaa Project and the Schoerke Foundation, will enable non-profit organisations to absorb some of the government’s burden in the education sector (Akaa Project Inc, 2017; Schoerke Foundation, 2011).
Addressing issues of inequality
The FSHS policy’s focus on inequality centres on providing access to quality education to students with low grades from low-income households (Ibrahim, 2018). However, there are no measures to help young girls overcome barriers and social gender constructs in pursuing courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The policy also does not include any interventions for students with disabilities and special educational needs. In addressing these challenges, some non-profits are making significant efforts to increase girls’ school enrolment and attendance. For example, the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) provides scholarships for young girls in rural Ghana from primary school to college. It also matches each scholar with a ‘teacher mentor’ who serves as a support system for students’ physical and psychosocial needs. These mentors motivate students to explore STEM courses in high school and pursue related careers in the future (CAMFED, 2021). Moreover, to address inequalities in schools in rural northern Ghana, VSO International runs a Tackling Education Needs Inclusively (TENI). This initiative has so far developed the confidence of 12,000 young girls across 60 schools and has supported 2,400 disabled students to access school by changing the community and family perceptions (VSO International, 2021).
Training teachers
A significant critique of the FSHS policy is that it mainly focuses on quantity instead of quality. Many Ghanaians have bemoaned that teachers at the SHS level lack the skills and knowledge needed to provide students with a hands-on education (Ibrahim, 2018). In response, non-profits, particularly the SABRE Trust and Pencils of Promise, provide teachers with pre-service and in-service training opportunities. The SABRE Trust developed the award-winning fast-track transformational training programme that trains teachers to abandon rote-based teaching methodologies and instead to lean towards pedagogies that engage students in active and play-based learning (SABRE Trust, 2018). Similarly, Pencils of Promise prepares teachers to use digital resources such as e-readers and conducts nationwide workshops to give teachers access to new and innovative methodologies that can enhance their teaching effectiveness (Pencils of Promise, 2021). Partnerships between the government and non-profits such as the SABRE Trust and Pencils of Promise can enable the government to share the essential yet expensive teacher training task to ensure that the FSHS policy succeeds in the long term.
Providing SHS graduates with employable skills
The FSHS policy relies on the Ghana Education Service (GES) curriculum, which is focused on preparing students to pass examinations rather than preparing them for the world of work (Anamuah-Mensah et al, 2007; The Editors, 2017). Consequently, many SHS graduates who cannot afford college tuition also become jobless, resulting in Ghana’s ever-increasing youth unemployment rate. To curtail this issue, non-profits such as the Meltwater Foundation and the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) help students develop skills in technology and agriculture. Studies show that KIC provides nine months of customised skills, capacity building and expert mentorship to help young Ghanaians develop their ideas about agribusiness (Yeboah, 2018). Similarly, the Meltwater Foundation runs the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), which provides training and mentoring for aspiring technology entrepreneurs. Both non-profits also provide funding for the most promising graduates of their incubator programmes to translate their ideas into action and create jobs. It is important to note that PPPs between the government of Ghana and these organisations can provide a pipeline for training SHS graduates and equipping them with skills that will prepare them to be gainfully employed after graduation.
Monitoring and evaluation of the FSHS policy
The long-term success of any new intervention, such as the FSHS policy, largely depends on consistent, rigorous monitoring and evaluation of the programmes implemented. In this way, the Ghanaian government would know how to assess the intervention’s progress and identify areas of improvement. Non-profits such as Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) have collaborated with the Ministry of Education to develop assessment and evaluation tools to inform new and innovative educational policies (Innovations for Poverty Action, 2018). Other non-profits can also partner with the government to evaluate the FSHS policy to provide robust evidence of the policy achieving its targets.
Conclusion
Using the case of Ghana’s FSHS system, this paper has illustrated that non-profit organisations offer significant contributions to the achievement of quality secondary education and enrolment outcomes. While the FSHS system has removed significant barriers to education, more must be done to ensure that the policy achieves its full potential. As trusted third sector partners, non-profit organisations can work with the government to improve access to quality SHS education. Non-profits such as the Kosmos Innovation Center and Pencils of Promise have shown that they can work alongside the government to build schools, train teachers, teach employable skills and address inequality issues to implement the FSHS policy successfully. Not only is it a moral mandate to ensure that all young Ghanaians have access to quality education at the SHS level, but it is also an economic investment that will pay off as Ghana marches towards economic development. We recommend that non-profit organisations strengthen collaboration that can help the government research the effectiveness of education interventions and identify measures to improve learning outcomes in secondary education.
Note
https://databank.worldbank.org/source/millennium-development-goals (accessed 18 June 2020).
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the thoughtful feedback we received from Moro Seidu and Sharon Attipoe-Dorcoo. Their comments helped strengthen the paper.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
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