Ghana is a much less populous country than large sub-Saharan states like Nigeria, Ethiopia, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it faces the same challenges in providing economic opportunities and education to its fast-growing population. The country’s populace has doubled within just three decades, from 14.2 million people in 1989 to 28.8 million in 2017, the present population growth rate in Ghana is far above the global average and that is also a contributing factor to adrift in education. Ghana’s education system is divided in three parts: basic education, secondary education, and tertiary education. However Ghana’s accomplishments in advancing access to education over the past decades have certainly been impressive. The country’s youth literacy rate, for instance, jumped from 71 percent in 2000 to 86 percent in 2010. Ghanaian children now attend school in higher rates than their counterparts in many other African countries, as well as in developing nations in other world regions. While more than 84 percent of children participated in elementary education in 2017, the gross enrollment rate (GER) in secondary education increased from 57 percent in 2012 to 73 percent in 2017, Furthermore the current situation of education system is faced with significant problems persist in the form of critical shortages of trained teachers, classroom facilities, and learning materials, particularly in rural regions.
Lack of infrastructure in rural areas
The recent introduction of free secondary education was an attempt to curb high dropout rates in Ghana’s schools. A reported 100,000 children do not transition from basic to secondary education each year because their parents cannot afford the costs. Furthermore, literacy standards and learning outcomes often remain poor, whiles there’s increased enrollment rates in recent years. About 70 percent of high school students failed the final senior secondary West African Examination Council exams in 2014. And gender inequalities in access to education are served
In spite of its skyrocketing over the past decades, the tertiary net enrollment rate also remain low . Prospects for increased tertiary attainment rates aren’t helped by the fact that unemployment among university graduates is so high,there was a formal “Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana in spite of these these problems,
Despite the fall out on Ghana’s education and more so the free SHS policies which were the back rock of the now president Nana Addo Danquah the Ministry of Education still says,they will ensure that all Ghanaian children of school-going age are provided with inclusive and quality formal education and training.
By:Nana Adwoa Annan
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