Introduction
The quality of a country’s human resources is positively related to its growth and development prospects. This is because an informed citizenry has capacity to craft the strategies, design and apply the tools, and to deploy efficiently and effectively the resources to compel socioeconomic development. However, this is achievable if all citizens have equal opportunities and access to education to build those capacities. This view is parallel with the World Bank’s statement that “sustained poverty reduction requires a commitment to reduce inequality and improve access to opportunities for all citizens” (World Bank, 2015).
Education is paramount for Africa’s development by serving as a key factor in preparing the required human resources needed to fill high level scientific, technical, professional and managerial jobs in both public and private sectors. Hence, investing in senior high education is regarded as a great beneficial to society.
The aim of this research is to review in details the state of free senior high education policy through the lenses of policy implementation politics, funding and expenditure analysis as well as performance results.
Justification
of Free SHS Policy
Article 13 (2b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states: “Secondary education in its different form shall be made generally available and accessible to all and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.” In Ghana, enabling access and equal opportunity has been undermined by the differences between rich and poor households and between the northern and southern parts of Ghana, with the school enrolment gaps between these groups widening over many decades. In an effort to bridge the enrolment gap between the rich and the poor, the government introduced Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) in 1996 (Essuman, 2018).
The intervention resulted in an increase in primary school enrolment country-wide, up to 57% in 1999 and 65% in 2004 (UNESCO, 2006). Free education, as per the Constitution and as per the FCUBE initiative, was offered to primary and junior high school levels only (Nsia, 2018). This led to a situation where enrolment rates were high at the primary (95%) and junior high (85%) school levels, but low (45%) at the Senior High School (SHS) level (Ministry of Education, 2017).
The above statistics implied that five (5) out of every ten (10) children who started primary school were unlikely to have the opportunity to attend SHS education (Business and Financial Times [BFT], 2019). Some researchers attest to the fact that the low enrolment at the SHS level is not due to a lack of demand, but rather due to limited financial capacity on the part of poor parents to pay for SHS education (Kuyini, 2013; World Bank, 2010). The situation necessitated the introduction of the Free Senior High School Education Policy.
The objectives of the Free SHS Policy are to: make senior high-school education accessible and universal; develop human capital; nurture the youth into responsible adults; and tailor education to Ghana’s development needs. These objectives are appropriate because the harmful effect of an uneducated mass of young people is that it imposes costs on children, their parents and society at large. The consequences of a mass of uneducated citizens are an illiterate and marginally productive workforce, reduced adult wages, poor health and a passive and ignorant citizenry (Satz, 2003).
The Politics of the Policy Implementation
The Free SHS idea and the mode of implementation have both produced intense debate. While some people argue fee-free secondary education is preposterous and inconceivable, others endorse it as a strategy for poverty reduction and a means to supply the requisite skills and talented workforce for Ghana’s socio-economic transformation (Essuman, 2018; Oduro, 2019).
More importantly, the debate is underpinned by concerns about cost, sustainability, human resource development and politics. Some have argued that the policy was rushed for political reasons and without full consideration of the cost implications. To those holding this view, Free SHS is too expensive, and relies on oil revenue and international donor support, which are both unreliable in the long term (Cudjoe, 2018).
Oduro (2019) has expressed that the sustainability of the policy will hang in the balance without reliable sources of funding. Thus, the current dependence of the policy on oil revenue funding is unsustainable. Others have argued that the rush to implement the policy implies that Free SHS is unlikely to meet the recommended standards of policy making (McConnell, 2010b), which could lead to failure.
In terms of the agenda setting stage, IMANI Ghana has criticized that there was no definition of the problem prior to the campaign pledge and the subsequent launch of the policy. The Free SHS process was turned upside down where instead of starting from problem definition and working through the stages, we had a solution that was now looking for a problem to solve. Thus, the promises and challenges of instituting a Free SHS Policy are wide ranging and needed broader consultations to determine whether Ghana really had a problem of out of pocket payment for senior high school education.
From the standpoint of the political dimension of the SHS Policy, the emphasis was on implementing a universal fee-free SHS education quickly, with little regard to need, or other viable alternatives, and somewhat heedless of sustainability in terms of financing. The political goal was to shore up voter support by fulfilling campaign promises, which it has largely achieved. Pertaining to the process dimension, the problem was ill defined, and the formulation and adoption stages were foreclosed to other viable solutions.
Moreover, many stages of the policy process were neglected and work on the attentive stages was poorly executed, which might diminish prospects of sustainability. For example, parliament was precluded from deliberation on the policy and so the rough edges of the policy could not be smoothed. It is therefore argued that the policy lacks strong legal foundations without bipartisan support, and successive governments can abolish it (Cudjoe, 2018).
Analysis of Sources of Funding
According to the Ministry of Education (2018), the Free Senior High School policy is funded by proceeds from the country’s natural resources, more specifically, oil revenue.
The Government of Ghana and the World Bank Group has, since the launch of the policy, also signed a USD 156 million financing agreement to improve equal access to secondary education in under-served districts throughout the country. The fund was to help enrol 30,000 new senior high school students, improve learning outcomes for 150,000 students in low performing schools and communities, and provide an extra 2000 senior high school teachers, head teachers and other education officials (Ministry of Education, 2018).
With regards to proceeds from the country’s natural resources, thus oil revenue, it is largely contested that the funding source is not sustainable. In other words, the natural resource is finite and the question that arises revolves around: when it is depleted, how will the policy then be funded? A question such as this therefore raises concerns about sustainability.
The recommendation of the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the African Union is that 6% of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should be allocated to the education sector. Before the introduction of the Free SHS policy, Ghana met the target by recording 6.3% of GDP in the year 2016. However, in 2017 the figure dropped to 4.5% and then tumbled further to 4.2% in 2021 (Ministry of Education, 2021).
From the figures reported, it is between 2017 and 2021 which paradoxically had the lowest shares of education expenditure as proportions of GDP. It is paradoxically because between 2017 and 2021 should have had the highest figures, since it was in these years that the Free Senior High School Policy, which is very costly, was implemented.
Figure 1: Trend Analysis of Free SHS Expenditure
Figure 1 shows Senior High School (SHS) expenditures in the Free SHS period (2017–2021). The graph depicts that SHS education expenditure has been on the ascendency over the years. However, the increases between the period of 2017 and 2018 were smaller compared to the increases between the period of 2019 and 2020. The SHS expenditure, which was GHS 2.7 billion in 2017, rose to GHS 2.8 billion in 2019 and climbed further to GHS 4.9 billion in 2021 which is 1.8 times higher than the 2017 expenditure. This implies that the total Free SHS expenditure for the five-year period (2017–2021) was GHS 17.8 billion.
(i) Effectiveness
Effectiveness is the degree to which a policy achieves its objectives. The objectives of the Free SHS Policy include: removing the cost barrier to education; enabling access to secondary education for all; improving quality and equity infrastructure expansion; and providing the requisite/essential skills for socioeconomic development.
In terms of the cost barrier, the Government of Ghana since the launch of the policy has absorbed all fees for SHS students. Also absorbed are all recurrent fees for day and boarding students, and meal fees for both boarders and day students. The government also agreed to pay GHS 20 per year per student to replace the portion of the Parent–Teacher Association (PTA) dues devoted to teacher motivation (Prempeh, 2018).
With respect to accessibility, government statistics indicate that Senior High School (SHS) enrolment has been on the ascendency over the years. According to a study by Action Aid (2019), the increases before the introduction of the policy were smaller compared to the increases in the Free SHS period (2017–2021). Figure 2 shows SHS enrolments in the Free SHS period (2017–2021). The figures presented indicates that the SHS enrolments, which was 472,730 in 2017, rose to 500,000 in 2018 and increased drastically to 1.2 million in 2021, which is 2.6 times higher than the 2017 enrolment. These increases in enrolment averaged 743,091 per year for the five-year period.
Figure 2: Trend Analysis of Free SHS Enrolment
However, a worrying situation is that the increase in SHS enrolment had led to a corresponding increase of pupils in senior high schools, with the total number of senior high schools increasing from 863 in 2016 to 927 in 2017 (Ministry of Education, 2018). Despite this increase, the infrastructure in terms of classrooms, dormitories, science laboratories and bungalows for staff have remained the same (Action Aid, 2019). For instance, the national Student–to–Classroom Ratio (SCR) for public SHS stands at 56:1 although the government has made strenuous efforts to resolve infrastructure inadequacies at the SHS level.
(ii) Efficiency
Efficiency refers to the amount of monetary effort required to produce a given level of effectiveness (Dunn, 2012). The Free SHS Policy is inefficient for a variety of reasons. First, the policy does not distinguish between parents and guardians who can pay for their wards’ SHS education and those who cannot. The lack of distinction has led to a situation where a sizeable number of students whose parents can pay for their SHS education are included in the policy.
In other words, the inclusion of students whose parents can pay for their SHS education does not allow government the fiscal space to run the fee-free policy in a sustainable manner. A research by Prempeh (2018) has argued that the support to wealthy households could have been used to expand infrastructure to accommodate the mass of students seeking senior high school education.
Second, the lack of space has led to the introduction of a double-track system made up of green and yellow batches. The ‘green’ students come to school for half the term and then vacate, making room for the ‘yellow’ students who come for the other half. The double track system has not only reduced the contact hours by half but it has also compelled parents and guardians to pay for private classes or tuition for their wards while they are at home for half of the term.
Third, the Free SHS Policy is also inefficient in the sense that some students who were offered SHS places were unable to enroll. The Ministry of Education disclosed that approximately 25% of students who are placed into SHS using the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) do not enroll in SHS (Ministry of Education, 2018). This is a waste because resources have been deployed to create the learning spaces, and yet enrolment barriers imply that class sizes are below the threshold for the optimisation of teaching and learning outcomes.
Fourth, the disbursements of capitation grants for the Free SHS places are not timeous (Ministry of Education, 2018) and this distorts school managements’ planning for the timely delivery of education services and contact hours.
(iii) Responsiveness
Responsiveness refers to the extent to which a policy satisfies the needs, preferences or values of particular groups (Dunn, 2012). The interview data suggest that the Free SHS Policy is not responsive because the students who need fee-free senior high school education the most are actually not the ones benefiting. In the words of Prempeh (2018), ‘students from rich households’ are the ones benefiting because they perform better than their counterparts in the rural areas in the BECE, and that exam qualifies students into senior high schools.
Essuman (2018) argued in his study that in 2016, before the start of the Free SHS Policy, 111,336 JHS students who, although got placement in SHSs, did not enrol due to lack of funds. But this number, he argued, was significantly trimmed down to 62,453 following the introduction of the Free SHS. The study therefore concluded that the Free SHS Policy is responsive (Essuman, 2018).
Lessons Learnt
In terms of outcomes, the policies led to increased enrolment rates in all jurisdictions. However, this is still lower compared to the JHS and primary levels, where enrolment stood at 95% at the primary level, 85% at the JHS level and 45% at the SHS level (BFT, 2019). This implies that poverty alone is not responsible for low SHS enrolment, but that other variables, such as lack of space, the opportunity cost of SHS and the expected return of secondary education, are also culpable.
By introducing the Free SHS Policy, which is the most ambitious education financing policy in the history of Ghana since Dr Nkrumah’s free education at all levels of the educational system in the 1960s, there is overwhelming public support for it. The policy not only enabled the President to clinch victory in the 2016 elections, but also increased the legitimacy of his government.
Despite the endorsements of the President by many poor parents, others have expressed disquiet about the need for implementing a blanket fee-free education policy when some Ghanaians can afford the cost of their ward’s secondary education. For the political dimension, decision makers were more concerned with expanding access in order to shore up voter support and enhance regime legitimacy.
The process dimension was not emphasised because doing so would have delayed or stalled the introduction of the Free SHS Policy. For example, in terms of agenda setting, the policy was poorly defined as there was controversy over what constituted free SHS education. The question that surrounded the notion of free SHS was: What would be free and what would not be free?
Conclusion
The introduction of the Free SHS Policy has undoubtedly shored up regime support and legitimacy. Nevertheless, it has increased demand for secondary education and has put pressure on existing resources (teachers, classrooms, textbooks and dormitories). Consequently, quality and learning outcomes are being negatively affected. These challenges, as were predicted by many critical stakeholders before the implementation of the policy, have raised questions surrounding political settlement in respect to SHS education financing in Ghana.
Recommendations
First, in terms of the overemphasis on access and seemingly scant attention on other aspects (e.g. teacher training and outcomes), we recommend an equitable focus on all these variables, with a much greater promise of graduating students who will be well equipped to pursue tertiary education or enter the labour market. We also recommend reforming the curriculum and its mode of delivery to achieve more meaningful outcomes.
Second, in view of the cost challenges facing the implementation of the policy, a targeted rather than a universal approach to free education would have been most appropriate. It would have also ensured better management of resources and improve quality. In order to facilitate the determination of who qualifies for fee exemption, we recommend adopting, expanding and updating “the vulnerability map” that is currently being used for cash transfer to the vulnerable under the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty Programme (LEAP) to target/support poor households who might also be stressed by other cost variables. Undoubtedly, targeting is unavoidable if Ghana is desirous of subsidising the poor without increasing the burden of taxation to income earners.
Third, partnership with the private sector in designing and implementing a fee-free SHS education would have been less fiscally burdensome for government. Uganda and Mauritius provide examples of alternative public private partnerships (PPPs) that are pragmatic for Ghana to emulate. Uganda’s PPP arrangement is such that owners of private secondary schools permit eligible students to study and this has improved test scores in low-cost private schools by 0.2 to 0.3 standard deviations. In Mauritius, the state provides adequate funding for education and subsidises a substantial proportion of expenditure in privately owned institutions.
Finally, the Double Track System (DTS) which arose as a result of a lack of classrooms and other infrastructure to accommodate the huge numbers of students has led to reduce contact hours and imposed additional costs on students in the form of private tuition fees and transport costs. We recommend that the DTS abandon this through leveraging idle infrastructure and teachers in private schools in the short term. In the long term, public school infrastructure should be expanded, and teachers trained to improve student–classroom ratios and teacher–student ratios. If these recommendations are implemented successfully, it is highly likely that the political settlement framework that begot the Free SHS Policy would be sustained.
References
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