Quality and access; community participation and access
Poverty and access
Access is defined here as increasing enrolments and reducing drop-outs in schools, and the Ghanaian Government's concern is to target particular groups, such as girls and poorer families who are currently less likely to enrol in the first place, and more likely to drop out of the system. The objectives of the SIF did not specifically include improving access to education. However, much development literature makes the links between on the one hand, increasing community participation and improving the quality of education, and on the other hand increasing enrolments and access. So the assumption might be that at least further down the line of the project lifetime, enrolment should increase and drop-outs decline in SIF schools as and when community participation increases and quality improves.
We have already argued first, that the SIF pilot design has not yet established the conditions to encourage widespread community ownership of schooling, and second, that community ownership is an insufficient condition for improving the quality of teaching and learning. But as the SIF or other community and teacher development initiatives are further developed, with the districts and local institutions playing a more central role, we need to examine the question of how community governance and improved quality of education might have an impact on access. While it can be argued that most development projects ultimately have an impact, however indirectly, on poorer and more vulnerable social groups, it is important to spell out the expected nature of those links. Some projects have a more direct and immediate impact on poorer groups than others, while others may even have an unintended negative impact.
There are at least two sets of relationships that need to be taken into consideration: the link between quality and access, and between community participation and access.
The relationship between quality and quantity (numbers of children in schools, which is key indicator of access) is not straightforward. The thrust of the education reform programme in Ghana recognises that the poor quality of education acts effectively to increase the opportunity costs of education (as the benefits of education decline while the need for child labour to support parents remains the same), and thus deters many parents from enrolling their children. But an increase in quantity risks affecting quality negatively, as classes become more crowded and new recruits to the system arrive with fewer of the benefits of the better-off children's parents (for instance, in terms of a space to study their homework, and the backing of more educated parents who are more likely to prioritise the successful learning of their children). This situation calls for improved classroom management techniques and different teaching methods (for which, again, the teachers and education experts should play a key role), as well as ultimately the building of more schools and classrooms. These issues need to be considered in policy discussions of quality and access.
Turning to the connection between community participation and access, it is important to distinguish between a range of types of community participation, particularly between those involving financial and non-financial contributions. In practice, the dividing line is blurred because many forms of contribution involve community time and labour, which are indirect costs for those concerned.
If we look for examples of how community participation (non-financial contributions on the part of the community) has helped increase access to education in Ghana, the evidence is weak. One of the objectives of the USAID-funded Equity Improvement Programme was to increase enrolments through community participation. Baku and Agyeman report that success was apparently attributed to providing incentives for parents to attend PTAs and other meetings and for community members to serve as resource persons: "The evaluation result of the Equity Improvement Programme provides a good indication of what level of community participation can be induced with the appropriate bait".35 There are two important points to note here. Firstly, this approach appears to the lack the foundations for sustainability: withdraw the financial bait, and presumably you lose the community participation and enrolments fall. Secondly, paying people to participate in education appears to defeat the purpose of encouraging community participation to help relieve the Government's burden of the costs of education.
35 Baku and Agyeman, op. Cit. p.95, authors italics.
The social development concern to foster community participation in terms of governance of schools sits rather uneasily in the same arena with the financial management concern to solicit community participation in the drive for more efficient management of resources.
It was pointed out above that to a large extent, the rationale for the community approach to schooling improvement fund-type projects was that they were conceived as part of a framework of measures to reduce the costs of education, by encouraging communities to contribute to the costs of their own schools. The debate around financing the education sector includes discussions of to what extent individuals or households can and should "cost share"36 the burden of education expenditure with government. The experience of participation through cost sharing in education has been mixed. Colletta and Perkins warn that even getting together labour support can be difficult in the poorest of communities. "The opportunity cost of voluntary time and effort often is not accounted for in estimating cost effectiveness and may be very high in some participatory projects. The goals of equity and poverty alleviation may be jeopardised if these dangers are not recognised."37
36 See, for instance. Cost Sharing in Education, P Penrose, ODA, 1997.37 Colletta and Perkins, op. cit. p. 10.
In late 1997, it was announced that the Ghana Education Service had empowered PTAs to impose special levies on basic schools to raise funds for school projects38. It is therefore important that we know to what extent and under what conditions community members can participate by financial contributions towards the costs of education.
38 Ghanaian Times, October 8 1997.
The link between poverty and low school enrolment and retention rates is made in several studies. However, the precise nature of this relationship is complex. In some cases, it appears that the main deterrent for many parents to place their children in school arises from the poor quality of schooling, rather than poverty in an absolute sense (the inability to afford school uniform, pay for exercise books and other direct costs of schooling).
PREP'S Second Social Survey (1994)39 found that restricted financial circumstances were identified as the greatest constraint to the education of both boys and girls. Financial constraints constituted a slightly greater barrier for girls than for boys. It was also more significant a factor in the Upper East and Upper West regions than in the other regions. (The Northern region was not included in this study due to ethnic conflict at the time.) The Survey also calculated that a higher proportion of school aged children were not in school in both Upper East and Upper West than in the other regions.
39 Fianu and Buckle, 1994, PREP. Second Social Survey. A study into community attitudes and social factors underlying regional and gender-based differentials in primary education in Ghana.
A poverty profile of the Ashanti region (1996)40 found that access to and utilisation of formal education facilities is constrained by poverty as parents are unable to provide the educational requirements of their children. The cost of education is seen not in terms of school fees but other requirements such as uniforms, textbooks, furniture and development levies. This study identified two types of poverty. The 'ahokyiri' are the able poor, who can afford the basic necessities of life, but not education. They are commonly female headed households or households headed by unskilled and/or illiterate adults. The 'ohio' are the very poor, who are unable to work and earn an income. They include the chronically sick and disabled.
40 Poverty Profile of the Ashanti Region using a Participatory Rural Appraisal Approach. sponsored by SCF, 1996.
A study on school enrolment in the Afram Plains (1996)41 also found that the major obstacle to attending school is poverty. Either parents could not afford school fees or other school-related expenses such as uniform, or the child was needed to assist in the household economy in some way.
41 UNICEF, 1996, Factors Influencing School Enrolment and the Health of School-aged Children. Afram Plains, Eastern Region.
The participatory poverty assessment in Ghana (1995)42 found the incidence and depth of poverty was greatest in the rural north. The main concern of most community members concerning education was the issue of quality rather than access. Discussions of quality covered a broad range of issues, from poor teaching and facilities, lack of supervision of teachers, lack of clear feedback on children's performance, and the shortage of teachers resulting from the policy of retrenchment of untrained teachers. Rural northern communities were apparently willing to engage in community mobilisation in education, but could not contribute in cash. The study advised that "service provision systems that rely to a substantial extent on the capacity of local communities to generate cash will thus lead to equity problems in terms of access." Yet one of the three SIF pilot districts which is located in the Northern Region, Savelugu Nanton, appeared to experience less difficulties in collecting cash contributions for Schooling Improvement Plans than the districts in Ashanti and Western regions. A common pattern in Savelugu Nanton is for families to send some but not all of their children to school. Poverty could be said to influence their decisions not in an absolute sense but, in keeping with the high value they place on a good quality education, they are willing to make sacrifices to ensure that some of their children get a good education, rather than risk all of them receiving a poor education with insufficient support provided by parents and the community. But it is also possible that community members were under intense pressure from the project team to make their financial contributions in Savelugu Nanton such that many of them then had to forego financial resources otherwise intended for health or other important needs.
42 A Norton et al, 1995, Poverty Assessment in Ghana using Qualitative and Participatory Research Methods. World Bank.
A study by Penrose cited in Penrose43 advised that survey questions on the willingness to pay for education asked of school administrators, teachers and parents "are notoriously difficult to interpret". About three quarters of teachers did not believe that pupils would be willing or able to pay more fees. Approximately one third of school administrators thought that pupils could pay more than an additional 3,000 cedis, but at the same time they believed that between four and six pupils in ten might drop out it fees were raised. In half of the schools surveyed pupils had been sent home for non-payment of fees at some time. Four in ten parents said they were willing to pay higher fees, but they would need to see improvements in facilities, teaching and their children's performance.
43 P Penrose, unpublished. Budgeting and Expenditures in the Education Sector in Ghana, EU/MoE.
This brief review suggests that in some situations, a focus on improving the quality of education will in itself make schooling more accessible to parents, but in other situations the poor quality and poverty issues will both need to be tackled.
Depending upon the proportion of very poor ('ohio') in a given community, there may be scope for exempting certain members from payment of fees, and for providing certain children with assistance in provision of uniforms or exercise books. This is an area where, once district education offices are in greater control of their own financial resources through the decentralisation programme, PTAs and SMCs could play an important role in setting criteria for exemptions and applying to the district education office for assistance. The district education offices could choose to allocate some of their resources to finance operational research, drawing on a broad understanding from the surveys and qualitative studies of how poverty and poor quality of schooling affect household decisions in education, and assisting or guiding communities to come up with solutions. Some of these solutions might be derived from within the community while others might require policy measures or financial support from the district education office. To a large extent, the solutions may require assistance from other sectors, for instance, where communities recognise that access to rural credit or income generating activities would be the most effective means of enabling families to afford education for their children. Although the district education office may not be able to respond directly to assist in all ways, the promotion of participatory learning and action and other local planning tools should help empower communities to gain access to the relevant agencies and organisations which could help them resolve their difficulties.
There are already a number of initiatives (ranging from small to medium scale) in the northern regions which have gone some way to address poverty as a barrier to education. The experience of Catholic Relief Services in providing school meals for pupils in the three northern regions has demonstrated that the school meal is one factor which helps retain pupils. This programme also responds to drop-out linked to seasonal vulnerability, where whole communities go hungry during the 'hungry season'. Other programmes such as an improved school health programme, where PTAs or SMCs manage certain medication (possibly including malaria prophylaxis), could also make the immediate benefits of schooling more appealing to parents.
Radical experiments sponsored by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as the 'Shepherd Schools' and 'School for Life' could be the most effective means of tackling the direct costs of schooling. The MoE/GES might have difficulty in promoting such informal schools, with their radically simplified curriculum. However, they might wish to permit districts to promote elements from these experiments, such as abolishing school uniforms or requiring that pupils work from one exercise book, rather than one for each subject, if these changes were to make school more accessible for families.
