Improving the quality of education at the basic level in the Northen Region: The case of Gushegu District of Northern Ghana
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Date
OCTOBER, 2015
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Abstract
The study was conducted in the Gushegu District of Northern Region of Ghana with the aim of establishing strategies that will improve the quality of basic education in the district. The study made due with both secondary data taken from the Ghana Education Service and primary data collected from 129 sample respondents consisting of head teachers, classroom teachers, Parents Teachers Association/School Management Committee (PTA/SMCs) members, circuit supervisors and director of education (The simple random sampling through balloting technique was used to select five basic schools from each of the eight circuits to constitute forty sample basic schools. Again, the same method was employed to select one teacher from each of the sample schools, whilst purposive sampling technique adopted to compost the forty head teachers, forty PTA/SMCs of the sample schools, the eight circuits supervisors and the District Director of Education).
The study found that the current state of basic education delivery in the district was far from quality. For instance, the best performance of the District at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for the recent past five years since 2008, was 37 percent in 2009/2010. However, this level of output at the BECE by the district on the same time frame was consistently fell below the least National average performance of 46.93 percent in 2013 (Opong-Sakyere et al..2013). This poor performance of the district could be attributed to challenges such as inadequate qualify and dedicated trained teachers (45 percent), inadequate teaching and learning materials (pupil textbook ratio, 5:1), poor parenting, poor conditions of service and inadequate infrastructure (thus, the district needs 60 number, 6-units classroom block at the basic level for serene classroom environment) militate against quality delivery.
The study further found presence of educational sector NGOs in the district, large tracks of land available to schools (for more classrooms construction) and availability of experienced teachers as potentials that could be tapped to improve the quality of basic education delivery in the district. The study again revealed that expansion of school infrastructure (by government and World Vision Ghana), intensification of supervision (GES Directorate) as well as introduction of inter-schools debate and quiz competitions (heads of basic schools) as strategies to improve quality education delivery. The study therefore recommends that in addition to implementing the above suggested strategies by the key stakeholders, educational sector organizations operating in the district should harmonize their divergent efforts to be able to impact on the delivery of quality basic education in the district.
Description
A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Masters of Science in Development Policy and Planning.