Caine Rolleston

Chapter 5: Policies on Free Primary and Secondary Education in East Africa--Retrospect and Prospect.

This chapter reviews the evolution of education policies in the East African region in a historical context. The focus is on the formulation of policies for access to primary and secondary education in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania since their inde pendence in the 1960s. We ask the following questions: What led to those policies and how were they funded? What was the role, if any, of the international commu nity? What were the politics and underpinning philosophy surrounding the formu lation of those policies and have the policies changed over time, and if so why? In recent years, several countries in sub-Saharan Africa have (re) introduced the Free Primary Education (FPE) policy in line with both Education For All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) international agendas. Three East African countries?Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania?are among them. All three countries are often held up as success stories in the implementation of FPE policies and in all of them, implementation of FPE policies is already leading to new policies for access to secondary education. But the idea of a universal primary education system is not new to these countries. Efforts have been made to expand access to education ever since they gained their independence from British colonial rule in the early part of the 1960s. Yet, still, there are those with no access, those who are excluded after initial entry, those at risk of dropout, and a majority excluded from any form of secondary education. The three countries have common characteristics and historical backgrounds. For example, few of their population had access to education at all levels in the past, and hence, each faced similar educational and literacy challenges at the time of their political independence in the 1960s. Kenya declared a campaign for Universal Primary Education (UPE) free of charge as a long-term objective in 1963. Tanzania followed in 1967, and Uganda, although lukewarm in its desire to expand primary education, nonetheless experienced improved access from the time of independence in 1962 until the late 1970s when internal political conflict and war caused serious

The determination of exclusion: evidence from the Ghana Living Standards Surveys 1991–2006

This article examines access to and exclusion from basic education in Ghana over the period 1991–2006, using data derived from the Ghana Living Standards Surveys. It uses the CREATE ‘zones of exclusion’ model to explore schooling access outcomes within the framework of the household production function. Empirical findings indicate that the period was marked by large‐scale quantitative access gains in Ghana. However, rates of progress through the system, as well as rates of dropout, showed no such improvements. Progress towards completion of the basic phase of education was found to be the preserve of the relatively privileged, raising questions of equity in relation to both the supply and demand for schooling. While Ghana may be one of few countries in Africa to achieve universal initial access to education, considerable challenges lie ahead in terms of improving rates of retention and completion.

School quality counts: evidence from developing countries. Editorial

In 2000 the Millennium Declaration issued by the United Nations identified poverty reduction as a main development goal for the 21st century. More specific goals were set by the international community in 2002, including the achievement of universal primary education by 2015. It was in this context that the Young Lives study was established in 2001. Through extensive household, school and community surveys, the Young Lives study follows 12,000 children from two age cohorts in Ethiopia, India, Peru and the state of Andhra Pradesh in India (see www.younglives.org). These comprise 2,000 children in each country born in 2001–02 (the younger cohort) and 1,000 children born in 1994–95 (the older cohort), providing evidence on the evolving relationships between education and poverty during childhood in comparative perspective. Young Lives’ offers a unique longitudinal dataset of linked household and school information stretching from infancy to young adulthood. This special issue employs this evidence to examine how poverty, access to education and school quality combine over the life-course of the child to shape educational experience, outcomes and life-chances, with special reference to the methodological advantages afforded by a dual cohort longitudinal approach across four countries. The overarching research question addressed by the papers in this special issue is:

The effectiveness of school-based decision making in improving educational outcomes: a systematic review

ABSTRACT The rhetoric around decentralisation suggests school-based management improves education outcomes. Existing reviews on school-based decision-making have tended to focus on proximal outcomes and offer very little information about why school-based decision-making has positive or negative effects in different circumstances. The authors systematically searched for and synthesised evidence from 35 quantitative and qualitative studies evaluating 17 individual interventions on the effectiveness of school-based decision-making on educational outcomes. Devolving decision-making to the level of the school appears to have a somewhat beneficial effect on dropout, repetition and teacher attendance. Effects on test-scores are more robust, being positive in aggregate and for middle-income countries specifically. On the other hand, school-based decision-making reforms appear to be less effective in communities with generally low levels of education, where parents have low status relative to school personnel. The authors conclude that school-based decision-making reforms are less likely to be successful in highly disadvantaged communities.

Education, poverty and culture in Ghana 1991–2010

Ghana has seen notable poverty reduction alongside improvements in school participation since 1991. This thesis explores the patterns among descriptive indicators and uses regression analysis to examine possible causal relationships with special reference to the role of education in determining welfare and its reciprocal, the role of welfare and other aspects of economic privilege in the determination of school attendance and progression. The study follows a mixed-methods design, following quantitative analysis at the national level with a mixed methods sub-study in a deprived district of Ghana. The primary quantitative study begins by reviewing the literature on modelling of the household consumption function as well as on modelling schooling decisions based on the household production function and considers these relationships in terms of a system of co-determining factors at individual, household and contextual levels. Attention is then given to important methodological issues related to the modelling approach. Two groups of models are estimated using data from the Ghana Living Standards Surveys and findings are presented. The results suggest that education levels play an important role in determining household welfare and that, for higher levels of education; these effects are considerably larger and possibly increasing over time. Educational expansion has, however, meant that access to the benefits from these effects has widened somewhat, although primarily at lower levels of access. Demographic change has also played an important role in welfare improvements. In terms of absolute numbers, access to schooling in Ghana has expanded dramatically although rates of completion and of drop-out have not improved and there appears to be a worsening of age-appropriate completion rates. Nonetheless, the first half of the period since 1991 saw substantial increases in rates of school attendance at the basic education level. This growth appears to have been driven by narrowing regional differentials, increasing welfare, urbanisation, improving gender equity, smaller and less dependent households and a reduction in the number of children involved in child labour. It is in relation to progression towards higher levels of education that more significant inequity emerges and in 2006 completion of lower secondary education in Ghana remained the preserve of children in areas and households of relative economic privilege. To explore issues of access in more detail and in context, an interview-based study was conducted in Savelugu-Nanton District, following quantitative analysis using regional and district-level data. Exploratory interviews with education professionals identified childfosterage and migration by youths into kayaye (head-porterage) as important inhibitors of access. These are considered in detail through two further sets of interviews with household caregivers and migrant workers, supported by quantitative analysis. Findings show that, fosterage, primarily motivated by cultural traditions of kinship obligation, is related to considerable educational disadvantage which, especially in the case of girls who face the additional pressure to accumulate items required for marriage, in turn is linked to migration South into menial labour. Despite recent policies to eliminate costs of schooling, low incomes in the district mean that schooling remains relatively costly, and household decision-making continues to exclude a notable portion of the child population; among whom many are fostered children.