Elizabeth Couri Social Policy Jeff Manza 21th May 2014 Ghanaian Education and The Voucher System For years, the Ghanaian Ministry of Education and the Ghana Educational service have experienced successes and difficulties in raising educated people in a country that has just reached middle-income status. These institutions acknowledge that without proper planning of education, a functioning structure and effective knowledge and skill acquisition, the country will not develop with its own efforts and Ghana will be dependent on outside forces to manage its economy. This is why there is a strong concern for the Education to reach more people and to be delivered with good quality. One of the biggest issues that confront Ghana is that, due to high costs of education and high drop-out rates, there are still thousands of children who are not able to climb through the ladder of education to the tertiary level. The numbers that drop out after every major stage are alarming and most government policies on education have not been able to solve this. The highest rate of drop that is of most concern occurs between the transitions from Junior High School to Senior high school. For any country, this should be alarming. The reason every child does not get into a Senior High school is mainly that they either cannot afford the school or they cannot get into the few competitive slots. This paper seeks to suggest why the government may be better off providing vouchers for students to go to private schools that will complement the already existing public schools. In the end, this may succeed at increasing the people who gain senior high school education and this may also push quality standards higher up. Formal Education was introduced to Ghana (fo... ... middle of paper ... ...istrict offices to also disburse monthly salaries of teachers, especially those in public schools, though similar governmental banking institutions like the Ghana Commercial bank. For the government to ensure that the private schools they support through vouchers are upholding the nationally developed curriculum which is designed to express educational solutions to the present and current challenges of the country, the schools should prepare its students to take the same tests that those in public schools do. This will ensure a good way to evaluate the actual advantages and disadvantages of the voucher system and whether or not it is a good system for the government to adopt and support. It will also help the government determine which areas of the country may need extra adjustments to the voucher allocations and which low income groups to expand the services to.
She realized that choice and accountability were not the answer, but that curriculum and instruction were more viable solutions to America’s educational dilemma. Ravitch suggests that to abandon public schools is to abandon the institution that supports our concepts of democracy and citizenship and to the promise of American life (Ravitch, 2011, p. 12-14). The idea of school choice is rooted in Milton Friedman’s essay concerning the government’s role in education. Friedman asserted that society should support and contribute to the maximum freedom of the individual or the family. He maintained that the government should provide vouchers to help support parents financially on their children’s education, which parents could use at the school of their choosing; so long as the school met set standards. Therefore, this creation of choice would stimulate competition, which Friedman believed would increase the development and improvement of nonpublic schools, as well as, create a variety of school options (Ravitch, 2011, p. 115). As a result of the choice movement, the public received three versions of school choice: voucher schools, private schools, and charter schools. Each of these schools receives public funding, but do not operate as traditional public schools, and are not managed by a government agency (Ravitch, 2011, p. 121). Charter schools became the most popular choice of this new
...ational system. However, Rosen and other supporters hold that the institution of voucher schools will benefit public schools by relinquishing extra funds to a student body devoid of the most at-risk, poor learners of the student population that will likely pursue a voucher-supported education. The controversy of the constitutionality presents two sides of completely opposite views. While the end results of the opposing opinions both continue to seek an improved outlook for America’s failing public educational system, it is the methods of realization of this objective that proponents and opponents of vouchers strongly disagree upon.
When looking at a brief overview of voucher systems it is important to realize that No Child Left Behind is the policy that really sparked the implementation of school accountability and therefore the idea of school choice. Politicians wanted to improve America’s education system so they began mandating standardized tests at public schools and designating letter “grades” to overall school performance (Garnet, 2005). The implementation of school voucher systems became a way to scare failing schools into improving because it allowed parents the opportunity to transfer their children to private schools, which would mean that the public schools would lose students and more importantly funding (West, 2005). Although this seems like a great idea it is statistically flawed in many aspects including the reach of students tha...
Strauss, Valerie. "Vouchers and the Future of Public Education." Web log post. Washington Post. The Washington Post, 05 June 2012. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
Across the country, there is a large number of well recognized issues within the education of learners in Africa that has reached an appalling proportion to the extent that even the standard of education has dropped drastically. Some of these problems may include shortage of teachers, under qualified teachers, poor teacher performance, poor time management, lack of educational resources as well as an absence of classroom discipline.
Poor education in the rural areas of Nigeria are a major problem. “Forty percent of Nigerian children aged six to eleven do not attend any primary school with the Northern region recording the lowest school attendance rate in the country, particularly for girls. Despite a significant increase in net enrollment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school.” (Jaulmes) Some children are not even fortunate enough to go to school in the west African country of Nigeria. Although Nigeria has had a National Policy on Education since 1981, it has not been implemented effectively and efficiently due to insufficient political will that leads to poor funding for schools and teacher,
The Public Choice For some parents, deciding on a school for their children can be a difficult decision. Many parents do not spend much time thinking about it; they place their children into the local school designated by where they live. Others attended a private school themselves and found that it was a beneficial experience and therefore want the same for their kids. But which is better: private schools or public schools? While there are many advantages and disadvantages to each (nothing is going to be absolutely perfect), we are going to focus on the benefits of an education in the public school system, or in other words, schools funded by the government that are for anyone to attend.
...on that can be taken place is sending some teachers that were willing to go to Nigeria and having them teach the Nigerians, so that their education rates increase.
Others who vanish for weeks on end, helping their parents with the year-end harvest. Still others who never come back, lacking the money to pay for school uniforms and school supplies. Such is the daily dilemma faced by many young people in the developing world as they seek to obtain that most precious of all commodities, education. With the global economy relying more than ever on brainpower and innovation rather than raw materials and manual labour as generators of wealth, a good education has become the key factor determining who will succeed and who will be left behind.
Free education allows everyone to study but with low intensity or levels of education. For example, governments with low incomes would not have enough money to employ professional teachers or provide students with all the technological equipment necessary in their studies; it is too expensive. In addition, with free education, the number of students will be impressive. It is important to emphasize that education is not the only responsibility that governments have. They also economically support other public institutions. According to OECD (2008), the major challenge for countries is to secure sufficient funding levels to enable tertiary education institutions to meet the growing expectations of society and respond to the growing demand by students. However, education without cost allows people the same rights and opportunities necessary to the development of an educated society with moral and ethical
The current education policy in Tanzania is engrained in the nation’s 2025 development plan intending to foster social and economic development laying emphasis on the well-educated citizens. The government has narrated clearly this objective in the initiatives for poverty reduction (Woods, 2008, URT, 2005). In achieving development goals, once again quality education remains one of the undeniable tools for increasing the welfare, freedom of people (UNICEF, 2012; Hartwig, 2013), and of course improved health services.
Ghana News Agency (2003), Educationist laments poor supervision in basic schools [Internet], Ghana News, Available from: , [Accessed 11 March 2011].
As gloomy as it would be, the national form four exam failures went on through 2012, where result stood even worse with 61% of students scoring a division zero on the exam (Twaweza, 2013). Following the catastrophic failure, the government nullified the entire exam result ordering “the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA) to review again the national form four results “using the 2011 grading system. Paying a close attention to the result, it remains clear that the problem was policy change, which was either not properly examined or explained before the implementation. If explored clearly the 2011 and 2012 cohort members as indicated in figure 4, embody students whom the ministry of education claimed that they passed the national exam with the rate of 60% in 2006 compared to how it was in 2002 with 12%. As the consequence, the 2006 cohort members made their way to secondary school under the SEDP and graduated (I would say in the years represented in figure 4 above ) with a lowest result ever (Policy Forum, 2012) representing a few students attaining division one and two. The result reminds policy makers to pay attention to the quality of basic education delivery, focusing on kindergarten and primary school for improving other levels of education.
The acquisition of educational degrees and certificates used to be the aim of every student and this usually was backed up with the support of parents. As a result of this, the standard of education in Nigeria was kept high and this was beneficial to both parents and students. The quest for quick wealth coupled with laziness has disrupted our educational system in the sense that students find it difficult to learn properly. To worsen the situation, parents now give support to their lazy and less-determined children. These children now choose to travel abroad for greener pastures that are not actually green, thereby leaving the schools for lizards and rats to inhabit. This has over the time posed a form of discouragement to the willing teachers, and it has led to the fall our educational standards. I believe that the fault does not come from the teachers because they have nothing to gain from teaching other than their salaries.
...ame year. The composition was 35% in tertiary institutions and 72% in Universities. This shows the competitive nature of Kenyan institutions and the well structured system it has put in place. For instance Kenya institutions put emphasis on non-university institutions that is key to nation building and repair. These centers of knowledge are essential for innovations, hand-on training which builds on the high technical enrollment at the bottom of the education system. Instead Uganda’s pyramid system of higher education comprise of more university enrollment to technical schools. This can be compared as training one nurse to two doctors, or several engineer to a single technician.