Understanding Educational Inequality and its Policy Implications: A Ghanaian School District Case

Francis Ewulley, Samuel Badu, Stephen Alluake, Deborah Newman

Abstract


This study investigates structural inequalities in Ghanian basic school education to inform relevant strategies to uplift the education outcomes for rural and low-income communities. The study was designed as a case study of a Ghanaian rural local government district’s basic education. Using a mixed-method approach, the study blends both qualitative data from community and households’ meetings, discussions, interviews, and field notes with statistical data from the district’s documents. A total of 148 people across a local government, local community, and local school level participated in this study. The findings revealed that inequality in the Ghanaian rural district researched is a problem of metro-centric education and development policies, as well as colonial legacies, layered on geographic, socio-economic, and cultural marginalisation. Therefore, the study concludes that education inequality in Ghana has more to do with the marginalisation of females., rural and low-income families’ voices and cultural assets in the education process. The study recommends that local-level policy practitioners and educators approach education and development from a justice lens by re-thinking new possibilities of reaching out to, and including the most socially marginalized groups, especially females and rural and low-income families in the education process. Ghanaian policy stakeholders need to be socio-culturally sensitive and place conscious to confront the structural marginalisation when enacting education and development strategies.

 


Keywords


educational policy; educational inequality; basic schools; rurality; relevant strategies; critical grassroots policy analysis

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References


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