| dc.description.abstract | All children have the right to education. Many countries, including Ghana, are committed to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for achieving universal primary education. Ghana introduced school feeding programmes and the capitation grant in order to strive for free basic education and abolished school fees. Although universal access to primary education will not be achieved in the near future, it does not mean that Ghana has not made some notable progress in, for instance, student enrolment. However, the increasing numbers of children in school have a direct influence on the need for more classrooms, textbooks, educated teachers, learning materials, and infrastructure. Therefore, it is interesting to incorporate the quality dimension of education within this study to define how the commitment to achieve universal access is affecting the quality of education in everyday life. Moreover, from a geographical perspective Ghana faces other challenges in securing access to and quality of education. The development process in Ghana has been occurring very unevenly within the country, particularly in the Northern Region. The disparities which have come about are reflected in the performances of social services including education.
Research objective
The objective of this study is to uncover the characteristics and the role of various actors in Ghana’s primary education and to define the challenges faced in the delivery of quality education. The focus lies on Tamale Metropolis (TM) in order to gather sufficient information on best practices. By visiting primary schools and conducting semi-structured interviews with the actors, this study tries to expose challenges from both the supply and demand side of education. The main question which this research aims to answer is therefore:
What are the characteristics of actors in the delivery of quality primary education in Tamale Metropolis? And what challenges are faced in enhancing the quality of primary education?
The research has been done in cooperation with the Alliance for Strengthening Education in Ghana (ASEG), the host organisation for this study. ASEG is a network organisation that supports improved access and quality of basic education in the north of Ghana. Over a period of almost four months, the system of primary education in the study area was examined. Moreover, for the sake of comparison this study also includes observations of primary schools in the Greater Accra region. | |
