Crecimiento interior: estar bien con uno mismo y con los demás

From a position of having been one of the best in Africa, Ghana’s education system was by the early eighties in the throes of a crisis with sev- eral underlying sources. Prolonged economic decline prior to the introduction of reforms had led to a compression of educational expenditure from 6.4 percent of GDP in 1976 to just 1.5 per-

cent by 1983. This spending was skewed in two ways: (i) large subsidies to secondary and terti- ary levels, meaning that only one-third of edu- cation expenditure went to the primary sector, and (ii) recurrent expenditure was almost entirely absorbed by wages of teaching and non-teach- ing staff, a problem exacerbated by the large number of “ghost workers.”7_{The physical qual-}

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ity of basic education facilities was very poor; schools structures were dilapidated and many lacked chairs, desks, and even chalk. The struc- ture of the system was inefficient, the school year was short, as was the school day at just four hours. However, pre-university education could extend to a staggering 17 years.

At independence in 1957 Ghana’s education system consisted of six years of primary educa- tion, followed by five years in secondary leading to O-levels, and a further two years (“sixth form”) to the A-levels required for university admission. Entrance to secondary was by means of a com- mon entrance exam. However, the majority of stu- dents went from primary to middle school for up to four years.8 _{Many children from better-off} homes attended private primary schools and were able to skip the middle school stage: in 1985, 30 percent of secondary entrants were from pri- vate primary schools, most of the rest coming from the fourth year of middle school. Thus the major- ity went through a 6,4,7 system, totaling 17 years of pre-University education.

Between Independence in 1957 and the mid- 1980s there were nine attempts at educational reform, starting with the Botsio Commission in 1960.9_{Most important was the 1972 Dzobo Com-} mission whose report, “The New Structure and Content of Education,” formed the basis for the 1986 reforms. The Dzobo Commission recom- mended that middle schools be replaced with Junior Secondary Schools (JSS), with a stronger vocational orientation, following which 118 JSSs were created on an experimental basis. However, opposition from the middle classes and the teaching profession, including the Ghana Edu- cation Service (GES) created in 1974, forestalled extension of the reforms. But 14 years after the Dzobo Commission the PNDC government finally implemented the proposed changes.

The 1986 Reform Program

The education reform program adopted in 1986 sought to:

• Change the structure of the school system by replacing the 6,4,7 system with 6,3,3, short- ening pre-university education from 17 to 12 years. Middle schools were to be replaced by JSSs, which would be an integral part of the

system for all children, and O and A-levels replaced with the secondary certificate. • Improve the teaching/learning process by

increasing school hours and the quality of teachers, including the phasing out of untrained teachers (i.e., those with no formal teaching qualification, often called “pupil teachers”).

• Increase cost recovery at the secondary and tertiary levels.

• Make educational planning and management more effective.

All four elements of the reform program were implemented and most sustained.

The restructuring was phased as shown in Fig- ure 2.1. The last cohort of middle school students was admitted in 1986/87; when they graduated in 1989/90 middle schools ceased to exist. Mean- while, the first JSS cohort was admitted in 1987/88, so that schools simultaneously con- tained both JSS and middle school students for three years. The first JSS students took the new ninth grade Basic Education exam at the end of the 1989/90 academic year, the successful can- didates forming the first cohort to enter the new SSS system in January 1991, completing in December 1993.

From 1987 to the mid-90s there was a sub- stantial drop in the percentage of untrained teachers from 50 to 20 percent in primary schools, and 35 to 14 percent in JSSs (see below). This decline has been reversed in recent years, particularly in primary schools. The reversal is partly because of the growth of the private school sector, in which most teachers are untrained.

The reform also included three forms of cost recovery: (1) increased charges for textbooks, (2) removing boarding and feeding subsidies for secondary and tertiary institutions, and (3) removal of student subsidies for tertiary education. Charges for textbooks were raised to cost-recovery levels, with the intention of setting up a revolving fund. However, the fund was not well managed (e.g., BESIP SAR: 12) and did not become a basis for sustainable textbook supply, which has contin- ued to be supported by external donors. More- over, textbook charges were abolished for primary

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students in 1995. Boarding and feeding subsidies were removed first through an increase in the parental contribution followed by the removal of the government’s contribution. Removal of sub- sidies for university students was delayed for some time on account of its political unpopular- ity manifested in frequent protests but eventually proceeded with some modifications. The Uni- versity Rationalisation Study was completed in March 1988 and in September of that year the gov- ernment announced its intention of removing subsidies from the tertiary sector. However, two months later, the government proposed a loan scheme for tertiary students that contained an ele- ment of subsidy. While cost recovery has not been as extensive as at first envisaged, parental con- tribution to costs for senior secondary and terti- ary education have become an established part of the education system in Ghana.

Improvements to educational planning cen- tered around strengthening the Ministry of Edu- cation. The Policy, Budgeting, Monitoring, and Evaluation division was created (with UNDP technical support partly financed by the Bank). The divisions of Curriculum Design and Devel- opment, and Supplies, were both relocated in the Ministry from GES. A school mapping was carried out in 1987 (under the project prepara- tion facility from the Bank) and educational sta- tistics began to be collated on a systematic basis since 1988 resulting in the later establishment of the Education Management Information System (EMIS) with World Bank and USAID support.