Ghana Higher Education Report

This comprehensive report investigates the impact of current efforts, particularly the HERANA project, on the accessibility and affordability of higher education in Ghana. It begins with an introduction outlining the research objectives and aims, followed by a review of the existing literature on the relationship between economic development and higher education. The report then delves into a detailed analysis of data collected through a questionnaire survey of 100 university students. The data analysis reveals significant challenges, including low awareness of government initiatives, limited access to benefits, and concerns about the quality of teaching and available facilities. The report concludes with recommendations for improving the higher education system in Ghana, focusing on strategies to enhance quality, increase affordability, and improve the connection between universities and employers. The appendix includes the questionnaire used in the study, and the references cite relevant academic sources.

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Research objective......................................................................................................................................4
Aim of study............................................................................................................................................4
Background and context of the study......................................................................................................4
Statement of the research problem........................................................................................................5
Definition of key terms and concepts......................................................................................................5
Assumptions............................................................................................................................................6
Summary.................................................................................................................................................6
Literature Review........................................................................................................................................7
Results and Findings....................................................................................................................................9
Data analysis..........................................................................................................................................21
Summary...............................................................................................................................................22
Recommendation......................................................................................................................................23
Overview of the study...........................................................................................................................23
Implications...........................................................................................................................................23
Recommendations for practice.............................................................................................................23
Recommendations for future research..................................................................................................23
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................23
Appendix...................................................................................................................................................24
References.................................................................................................................................................25

Introduction
The focus of the study is to understand the impact of current efforts in the Ghana which provides
accessible and affordable higher education. The sources of funding is the major issue in the
accessibility of higher education in Ghana so the current effort of the government is to provide
the sources of funding for higher education which enables to facilitate the higher education for
students in Ghana. The funding policies are the current efforts which are done by the government
in order to facilitate higher education in Ghana. The policies are a hypothesis in which the
designed plan shows the hypothesis of conversion of hypothesis into the government action. The
policy reforms and the formulation of new policies have transformed the higher education with
the aim of pointing various issues and challenges faced in the accessibility of higher education in
Ghana. The policies have been developed in the various areas of higher education which enables
to provide funding facilities in order to ensure smooth running of entire higher education system.
For example policies are designed in order to ensure the quality of higher education. The
The various other efforts are currently takes place in the Ghana such as development of
universities, educational programs by the government and others. The HERANA (Higher
education and economic development) is the program which was established in 2007 in order to
research on the higher education and advocacy network in Africa. It is coordinated by the high
education transform. The higher education masters in Africa programme is the capacity building
component of HERANA which contributes towards the strengthening of higher education in
Africa. The research component of the program contributes towards the research of higher
education in Ghana. The HERANA is funded by the various organizations such as the Ford
foundation, the Rockefeller foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Kresge
foundation. The funding of Higher education masters in Africa programme is done by NORAD.
The project focus on the complex links between the economic development and higher education
in Africa. The objectives of HERANA include evidence based information related to the higher
education and the working of high education sector; link the network of African higher education
with other international groups, sharing of capacity building of inter-disciplinary higher
education in a network of researchers and senior researchers. The multiple source of funding
facilitates higher education in Ghana. The South African funding system is implemented in the
national policy which facilitates higher education and the higher education policies has taken
into consideration equitability, democracy and integrate economic development because it is
considered as the major concern for the development of the general people in Ghana. According
to the research there is a complexity between the Centre for education policy development and
Democratic university staff association but they are trying to achieve the targets in order to
facilitate higher education in Ghana.

The planned and systematic review programs are introduced by the government in order to
review the standard of education, teaching, administration, scholarship and infrastructure which
enable to provide high quality of education in Ghana. The role of universities plays an important
role in providing higher education in Ghana which enables to develop the economy by increasing
the literacy rate of people in Ghana. According to the Varghese et al., 2013 the public sector
institutions and state plays a central role in providing higher education in Ghana through
developing the strategy which enhance the higher education in an efficient and effective manner.
The higher education is provided through universities. In the 1960s and 1970s many universities
are established in the Africa which supports higher education in Ghana and the public
universities in these countries are the symbol of self-respect and national pride. The expansion in
the higher education provides aspiration of political and economic of the newly independent
government. The government was willing to invest in the higher education which provides the
facilities of development in Ghana. In the twenty one century the role is centrally managed by
the universities in order to provide higher education. Since after that the sector is tremendously
expanded in the past few years. The sector of higher education attracts large number of
stakeholders due to which the higher education plays an important role in the transformation of
Ghana. However there are still various challenges which are faced in by the higher education
sector such as funding, concern of quality, poor research base and institution capabilities and
others.
There are many revolutionary changes which took place in the higher education globally which
impacts on the higher education of Africa. The internationalism impacts on the activities of
higher education in Ghana which enables to shape the higher education in the 21st century. It is
the major force on the higher education which results into various opportunities, challenges and
risk which demands in depth analysis and understandings. The role of higher education in Africa
is not contestable in the sustainable political, social and economic development. The sector is
struggling due to inadequate capacity and few resources due to which it is difficult to respond to
the increasing demand.
The various challenges are faced in the development of higher education in Ghana which has
pertinently threatened the socio economic wellbeing. The summarization of challenges was
shown within the Millennium development goals. According to the African progress report, 2012
it is shown that the progress is being done towards the attainment of the Millennium
development goals in which the gains in education, disease survivors against the malaria and
HIV, and child survival has been improved. However the overall progress remains slow and
many citizens are still in the trap of poverty due to which there is level of inequality in the across
the Africa.
The project starts with the review of international literature on the relationship between
economic development and higher education which is followed by the three case studies of three
systems that had successfully linked the higher education policy and economic development in
three states, namely, South Korea, Finland and North Carolina. The analytical framework of the

project the universities are considered as the institution for the production of high level skills and
the innovation of knowledge and it is based on the traditional core business. In the government
knowledge policies the higher education is one of the important areas. It shows that the political
actors are more interested in the higher education than the socio economic stakeholders. It raise
the issues of system and the coordination level of knowledge with the adequate structure within
the political system. The research group has taken three case studies in the development of
national strategy in order to enhance the higher education by understanding the complex
relationship between the higher education and economic development. The project is not
attempting various aspects such as the evaluation of universities in the development of the
countries, assessment of the impacts of policies, examination of external donors in the
development of universities, and primary role of higher education in the development.
The universities conditions contribute towards the development of the economies by facilitating
higher education to the students in Ghana. The universities can also took participation in the
global knowledge economy and make a contribution in a sustainable manner if the core of
academics is qualitatively and quantitatively strong. The conditions of the universities in Africa
are contributing towards the development of economy and it is influenced by the following three
factors which are interrelated:
 The size, nature and continues academic core of the university.
 The nature of a pact between the political authorities, universities and the society.
 The impact of implications, level of coordination and connectedness in the context of
large policy of universities.
Research objective
1. To determine the current level of higher education in Ghana.
2. To inquire into "effort" underway to provide accessible and affordable higher education in
Ghana.
3. To develop a case study of "its" objectives, process and current impact.
Aim of study
The aim of the research is to determine the impact of HERANA project on the affordability and
accessibility of higher education in Ghana.
Background and context of the study
The funding policies are ensured by the government in order to facilitate higher education in
Ghana. The HERANA project investigates the following conditions for harnessing higher
educations for the economic development:

1. The quality schooling and equitable is the two foundations on the basis of which higher
education system is built so there was an emphasis on the higher quality of higher
education within the particular time period.
2. The participation rate in the education has been achieved.
3. The higher education is differentiated in order to achieve the human capital and objective
of innovation for the development of economy.
The development of universities is one the current effort which is towards the higher education
in Ghana. There are various issues which are faced by the sector such as weak research and poor
innovation capacity due to which the government is unable to provide high quality of education
in Ghana. The African Union Second decade of education plan has prioritize the higher
education in Africa in order to develop the country and the emphasis on the generation of
knowledge through regional integration, quality assurance, resource mobilization and others.
The African Union Commission views regional integration as the key element and intermediate
step towards the African countries integration into the global economy. It is mainly done to bring
convergence in the higher education system of Ghana which is diversely structured along the
colonial, geographical, structured lines and linguistic. The premium is used for the quality and
research in higher education. It is reflected in the organizations of regional universities for
example Southern Africa Regional Universities Association. The Arusha Convention is
implemented by the Pan African University which aims at the harmonization of academic
programs in order to enhance the quality assurance, compatibility, recognition and the
transferability. The concept of development is not confined to the macroeconomics forces of
growth but it also forces on the improvement of the individual and human conditions
improvement such as standard of living, equality, wellbeing and others.
Statement of the research problem
The purpose of research study is to learn the importance of current efforts in providing the
affordable higher education in Ghana. The study was mainly designed with the following four
interrelated questions:
1. What is the current level of higher education in Ghana?
2. What are the efforts that provide accessible and affordable higher education in Ghana?
3. What is the current impact of the efforts on higher education?
The above research questions are designed in order to tie the central research questions by
guiding the overall study.
Definition of key terms and concepts
The objective of the study and subsidiary and central research questions guides the study. The
working definitions of the key terms and concepts are explained below:
Description of Higher education

In this report higher education includes a wide range of universities, technical colleges, and
vocational college among other formal institutions. The higher education is expanding with the
expansion of knowledge in the economy which promotes the social welfare and the progress of
economy. According to the research the higher education is one of the elements which drive the
high economic performance in OECD countries in the past few decades. The higher education is
influenced by the universities and research organizations which influence the economic
competitiveness of an individual in global context. The higher education is developed in Ghana
through research and development activities in order to grow the knowledge of people in Ghana.
Current Education system
The current education system in Ghana is characterized in the principle by a binary structure in
which the universities are on one hand and polytechnics are on other hand. The reforms are
introduced in the year 1987 after then the education system has sixteen structures in which six
years are of primary education, two or three years of secondary education, and four years for
higher education. In Ghana there are more than twelve thousand primary schools, seven hundred
senior secondary schools, fifty five hundred junior secondary schools, eighteen technical
institutions, twenty university colleges, ten polytechnics, three charted private universities and
six public universities.
Assumptions
The study assumes that the majority of respondents are between the ages of 25-30 years. The
study also assumes that the respondents are capable of responding regarding the current level of
higher education in Ghana.
Summary
The proposed study was based on the determination of the impact of funding policies on the
accessibility of higher education in Ghana. The research is done through questionnaire and the
respondents are university students in order to analyze the higher education system of the Ghana.
The objective of HERANA is to determine the complex relationship between the education
system and economic development which leads to acts as a current effort for the development of
higher education in Ghana. The purpose of the research is to analyze the impact of HASANA
project on the accessibility of higher education in Ghana. The funding polcies literature review is
discussed in the paper and in the research methodology the research methods in explained after
that the data is analyzed based on the data collection of hundred respondents who were the
college students. So the data analysis is done after the data collection. Then on the basis of
analysis the conclusion has been made. The focus of the report is widely on the current efforts in
order to provide accessibility to higher education in Ghana. In the background and contextual
information the economic development and the government policies with the financing for
higher education is explained.

Literature Review
Introduction
This chapter talks about the theoretical framework and the conceptual background of the higher
education in Ghana. The purpose of this literature is to give a background to this present research
about inquiring into the efforts that are underway to provide accessible and affordable higher
education in Ghana. The literature will focus on the state of the higher education in Ghana and
the way it has developed from the past several years. Apart from this, the current efforts that are
being implemented to improve the condition of higher education in Ghana will also be discussed.
The funding of these efforts is another issue that Ghana faces, so that will be talked about in
minor details.
The role of higher education in Ghana
According to (Kaiser, 2014), there exists a pact between the stakeholders at the national and the
institutional level and also among the external stakeholders like the foreign donors etc. who
believes that for the sustained contribution to the development of Ghana, the higher education
plays a key role. Here, the meaning of pact is given by (Varghese, 2013) who says that a pact is
any commitment between the political authorities of country, the universities and the society
regarding the understanding of cultural, political and the socio-economic things and the pact lays
down the points for the expectation from the universities of Ghana, and the rules and regulations
that they must follow for improving the condition of education and for imparting higher
education in Ghana.
(Cloete, 2015) writes that the role of higher education in Ghana can be understood from the
perspective of national authorities a s well as the institutional stakeholders who are at the
University of Ghana. (Cloete, 2015) further writes that from the national perspective, the higher
education will help in achieving the economic development of the country by contributing in the
Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) (2006‐2009) and the Ghana Vision 2020. In
the GPRS II, human resource development aims to ensure the development of the
knowledgeable, disciplined and well-trained labor force that have the capacity to drive and
sustain the growth which is led by the private sector. Under this strategy scheme, the growth will
be accelerated when the access and the participation in the education of people and their training
will be increased (Graham, 2013). Also, higher education enables the gap in the gender to bridge
and people get an access to the education in all districts. When this happens, the economic
development of the country rises. Also, the efficiency in delivery of the educational services will
get improved. Finally, as per the perspective of national authorities, when the higher education
will get imparted in Ghana, the science and technology will be promoted which will lead to
innovation, cost savings and ultimately the development of the economy (Thorbecke, 2013).

Then, (Sampson, 2014) talks about the Ghana Vision 2020 where the main aim is to reduce the
level of poverty in the country, increase the average income of people, and reduce the income
disparities. This means that the vision is to develop the humans in Ghana and this can be
achieved when the higher education is imparted to people. With the higher education of good
quality, the rate of population will get reduced because people will become aware of the benefits
of nuclear families. This will make people more educated and thus they will enter into medical
fields. This will help in reduction of the infant and child mortality, the food security will get
improved and the health services will be accessible to all.
Thus, the higher education has a very important role to play in development of Ghana and the
government wishes to achieve all the improvements in the human development of the country by
imparting them higher education.
Efforts by government to provide accessible and affordable higher education in Ghana
Education Strategic Plan
It is mentioned in (Singal, 2015) that the government of Ghana has made an education strategic
plan for 2003-2015 that aims to provide the relevant education to all the Ghanaians at all the
possible levels so that they can acquire the skills that will help them to develop their potential to
do the tasks, they will become more productive and the reduction in the level of poverty will be
facilitated. These will in-turn help the country in promoting its socio-economic growth and
develop at the national level. It has been mentioned by (Botts, 2013) that this plan is an effort
towards the education sector with the following aims:
• Ensuring that the citizens of Ghana become functionally literate and they also become
self-reliant, no matter of their age, tribe, religion, gender etc.
• The plan also aims to give the basic education to all the people.
• To create the open education opportunity to all the people.
• To develop the skills in the field of education and training with special emphasis on the
science, technology and creativity.
• Finally, it aims to extend the higher education for developing the middle and the top-level
requirements of the manpower.
According to (Nketsia, 2013), this plan basically tries to eliminate the four major areas of issue
in the education sector of Ghana. These areas of issue include, the inequitable access to
education to the people, the poor quality of education given to people of Ghana, the poor
management in the educational sector and lack of technical and the vocational education and
training in the country. Thus, this is a valid and essential effort that needs to be put in by the
government of Ghana for providing easy and accessible higher education to the people. This will

not only improve the issues areas, but also lead to development of humans in the country who
will then be able to contribute in the development of the country.
National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy
Ghana has a vision that it wants to become the middle-income country. For fulfilling this vision,
the country wants to fully apply and integrate the science, technology and innovation into the
national development strategies so that the nation’s science and technology capacity can be
harnessed and the aims of reducing the poverty, making the enterprises competitive, managing
the environment sustainably and growing the industries can be achieved successfully
(Amankwah-Amoah, 2015).
Results and Findings
The data analysis is defined as the process of transforming, cleansing and modeling of data with the aim
of discovering the useful information in order to make the conclusion. The data analysis is mainly
considered as the analysis of data which is used to convert the raw data into useful information. The
questionnaire is defined as the set of questions which is used to survey and gather information from the
respondents.
The questionnaire is used for conducting the research among the university students and the sample size
of the survey is hundred who have experienced the higher education so they are capable to answer the
questions which are asked in the survey. The questions are asked in context to determine the view point of
students regarding the contribution of higher studies in Ghana.
1. What is your highest qualification?

Graduates Post graduates
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Series1
Qualificatio
n In %
Graduates 65
Post
graduates 15
It is founded that the sixty five percent of the students out of hundred university students are graduates
and only twenty five present students are post graduates in different streams. It shows that the
undergraduates are higher than the post graduate students in Ghana.
2. Are you satisfied with the current level of education system in Ghana?
Satisfeied Unsatisfied
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Series1
Level of In %

satisfaction
Satisfied 23
Unsatisfied 77
It is founded that the satisfaction level of college students from the current education system is only
twenty three percent which shows that the education system needs much amendments which helps to
improve the current education system for higher education in Ghana. Seventy seven percent of the
respondents are not satisfied with the current education system in Ghana.
The education system of Ghana has since undergone from the past two decades despite of many policies
and improvement in the infrastructure still the education system needs major improvements in Ghana.
3. Do you aware about the facilities provided by the government for the higher education?
Aware Not aware
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Series1
Awareness In %
Aware 26%
Not aware 74%
It is founded in the study that only twenty six percent students are aware regarding the facilities provided
by the government for facilitating higher education for the students. Seventy four percent of the students
are unaware regarding the facilities provided by the government. It shows that there is higher
unawareness regarding the government facilities which needs to be increased in order to increase the
percentage of higher education in Ghana.
Are you able to get the benefits from the government regarding the higher education?