RECENT NEWS AND UNDERGOING POLICIES IN THE EDUCATION

MINISTRY
FREE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL POLICY
BACKGROUND
A policy of the government of Ghana, starting in September 2017. Every child in Ghana who qualifies
for, and is placed in a public Senior High School for his secondary education will have his/her fees
absorbed by the government.
Education and skills training are the most important source of empowering and providing opportunities to
the youth to help drive Ghana’s development, and in the process create jobs.
As a nation we are determined to bring education to the doorstep of our children because it is worth it. We
dare to do this because we ardently believe that the Ghanaian child deserves it.
The government has given full effect to SDG 4.1 with the implementation of a Free SHS Policy. The
programme, is anchored in the below pillars;
Removal of cost barriers
Remove Cost Barriers through the absorption of fees approved by GES council
Expansion of infrastructure
Expand physical school infrastructure and facilities to accommodate the expected increase in enrolment.
Improvement in Quality and Equity
Improve quality through provision of core textbooks and supplementary readers, teacher rationalization
and deployment, etc.
Development of Employable Skills
Improve competitiveness of Ghanaian Students to match the best in the World.
Free SHS means free tuition, admission fee, textbooks, library fees, science center fees, fees for ICT,
examination fee, payment of utility fee, boarding and meals.
Article 25 1b of the 1992 Constitution states that “Secondary education in its different forms including
technical and vocational education, shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every
appropriate means, and in particular, by the progressive introduction of free education”.
Goal 4, Target 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also states that “by 2030, all boys and
girls complete free equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and
effective learning outcomes”.

SOME STATISTICS
92%
STUDENT PLACED
424092+
Student Qualified
267322
Instant Placement
The Scope
SHS enrolment has almost doubled from 393,995 in 2007/08 to 787,861 in 2015/16 academic year. This
notwithstanding, large number of students continue to be denied of secondary education.
To reverse this trend, it is our effort to implement the Free SHS policy.
Objectives

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION POLICY (ECE)

BACKGROUND
The ECE policy prepares children of school going age in readiness for primary school, and develop
holistically, their physical, social, emotional, and intellectual wellbeing. To achieve this depends, firstly,
on a strong ECE subsystem, built through quality government structures and in partnership with strategic
stakeholders, including parents, families, aimed at ensuring a collective ECE implementation and
addressing children’s needs, especially the marginalized and most vulnerable including those with special
educational needs.
Secondly, it ensures that children are enrolled in KG at the right age (4 and 5 years) and exposed
primarily to stimulating experiences and nurturing care and taught numeracy, literacy and problem-
solving skills through play and games. This lays a solid foundation for life-long learning to enable them
become responsible future citizens.
The Government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ghana Education Service
(GES) has established conducive enablers through the development of the ECE Policy Framework (with
accompanying documents that guide the ECE Policy Implementation such as the Policy Directives,
Costed Implementation Plan/Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, ECE Policy Guidelines), to build on
the Education Act 2008, which supports the constitutional commitment to Free and Compulsory
Universal Basic Education (fCUBE), which provides for two years of Kindergarten education amongst
children aged four and five years.

The approach is to reinforce The Education 2030 agenda and to meet the ECE targets in Ghana’s National
Education Strategic Plan 2018-2030, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target
4.2.4:‘by 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and
pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.’ The best investments Ghana and any
country can make to promote their own resource development, is by starting it right with her Kindergarten
Children and ending it right.
ECE Policy
A young child’s brain is full of innate potential, and the early years offer an irreplaceable window of
opportunity to set a path towards success in primary school and later in life. Quality Early Childhood
Education generates a positive sequence of learning while lack of access to pre-primary education widens
achievement gaps and restricts opportunities. Children who fall behind at a young age often never catch
up with their peers, perpetuating cycles of underachievement and high dropout rates that continue to harm
vulnerable children into their youth.
Globally, 175 million children of pre-primary age are not enrolled. Countries with high numbers of
children not in pre-primary education are missing a critical investment opportunity and are at risk of
suffering deep inequalities from the start. In the low-income countries, only 1 in 5 young children are
enrolled in pre-primary education.
Unlike Ghana, 3 in every 4 children are in school (73.8%-2018/19 EMIS). Ghana is leading in pre-
primary education in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2008, Ghana included two years of pre-primary education
(Kindergarten) as part of its constitutional commitment to Free and Compulsory Universal Basic
Education (fCUBE) and as part of strengthening the ECE-sub-system, the Ministry of Education and the
Ghana Education Service has facilitated the approval of the ECE Policy Framework and endorsed by
cabinet in 2020. The policy has three different documents (policy directive, MEL/Costed
Implementation Plan and ECE guidelines).

Why the ECE Policy – The aim of the ECE Policy Framework:
The main aim of the ECE Policy is to strengthen the ECE sub-sector to advance the developmental
growth (physical; cognitive; psycho-social, emotional) of all 4- 5-year-olds including the disadvantaged,
vulnerable and those with disabilities and special needs children through the following:
 Ensure KG Spaces are available for all KG children in Ghana;
 Ensure effective implementation of KG curriculum for improved play-based learning;
 Equip Inservice and Pre-service Teachers and Non-Professional workers in the ECE space
  Engage family and communities to provide learning opportunities at home to support children’s
school readiness;
 Monitor and supervise for accountability at all levels of ECE service delivery;
 Encourage in the development of socio-emotional skills and healthy physical development;
 Enhance social change and social justice by reduction of inequality amongst the vulnerable
and marginalized children;

STEM POLICY
BACKGROUND
STEM is an abbreviation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education and its
importance to education in a technology-driven world cannot be overemphasized. It needs serious
attention to propel education, the youth and future of every school and nation that embraces it.
Presently, we live in a world where technology takes a larger chunk of what we do, daily activities and
the economy as a whole. Technologies are now fast replacing the workforce and it’s already been
predicted to triple its initial stage in the next decade.
Importance of STEM Education
STEM Education helps prepare students for college
Being a special type of education that improves the analytical skills of students, implementation of STEM
Education helps reduces the chances of failing or dropping out of college.
Moreover, many college courses include either one or two of mathematics, science, engineering, and
technology, which happens to be the courses STEM do major.
Having taken STEM Education, a student will definitely have an upper hand while in college and will be
more confident.
In addition to that, such students will find it easy to choose a career related to any this field because they
already have a solid background.
STEM Education is vital for non-STEM jobs
The importance of STEM Education goes beyond the shores of STEM-related occupations. It has more do
with Non-STEM jobs as well.
In the labour market today, quite a number of Jobs have financial aspects that need special attention and a
good knowledge of mathematics is needed to put figures together.
Moreover, the world has now gone digital to the extent that art and humanities jobs also require good
computer skills to be efficient.
With a solid background given to students by STEM education, they will be able to copy in any
atmosphere or job conditions.
STEM brings about creativity
For students with STEM education, the benefits are endless. This is because such students will definitely
have a creative spirit and a broader mind horizon. That is the outcome of the analytical reasoning needed
in the STEM courses.
In addition to being able to think and bring out something creative, such students will be problem solvers.
And presently, that’s the world needs right now are problem solvers that will bring something entirely
new to the table.
Serve as the basics of the environment
Good knowledge of STEM courses can also help student understands the environment, how it works, it’s
significance and the society at large. Take for example to understand the weather and even forecast what
is to happen in the nearest future, STEM education is need. This cut across all facets of life including
politics, business world and many more.
What this implies is that STEM education is not only meant for potential Nobel laureates or those with
the intention of becoming engineers, professors, and other science-related professionals, it is meant
everyone in the society that wants to understand the world in which they inhabit.
For these and many reasons attempts to improve on the education has led to the introduction of the new
syllabus in this regard in many countries to cause the needed shift in the education and related knowledge
that is delivered to learners under the STEM modules.
PROJECTS UNDER STEM
STEMNOVATION (FREE SHS SECRETARIAT)
STEMNOVATION is designed to challenge and tap into the creative potential of the current Free SHS
Programme beneficiaries in Senior High Schools, Senior High Technical Schools and TVET institutions.
Launched on Monday 5th September 2022, Kumasi Academy emerged winner of the just ended
STEMNOVATION competition, launched by the Hon. Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum
with the support the Hon. Deputy Minister for Education Hon. Rev. John Ntim Fordjour through the Free
SHS Secretariat of the Ministry of Education.
Another good news about this competition is that it is the first of its kind at the second cycle level of
education in Ghana that will task competing schools to apply indigenous materials in their surroundings
to develop a STEM project that has the potential to solve a specific problem in their community.
Each Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project developed during the
competition contained at least one of the following themes:
a. Solar Energy for Sustainable Socio-Economic Development
b. Recycling for Sustainable Socio-Economic Development
c. Coding & Programming for Sustainable Socio-Economic Development

STATISTICS
It is in line with the STEM policy that the government has programmed finances to establish five (5)
STEM universities in 5 newly created regions starting this year. The government as part of STEM
promotion has constructed 10 STEM high schools and a STEM academy to take care of the pre-tertiary
level to ensure the country attains its strategic objective by 2030, with the strategic objective of ensuring a
60/40 science to humanity ratio as against the current 40/60 in favour of humanity.

EMERGENCY IN EDUCATION POLICY (EiE)- NO DATA

ICT IN EDUCATION POLICY
It is acknowledged that for Ghana to make any appreciable progress in its socio-economic development
efforts, substantial resources will need to be directed at improving educational delivery. The key role that
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play in widening access to education to a
wider section of the population and literacy education for facilitating educational delivery and training at
all levels has been recognized as a key priority area under the current Education Reforms (2007).
International experience from both developed and developing countries have shown that these
technologies have an enormous potential for knowledge dissemination, knowledge acquisition, effective
learning and the development of more efficient education services. The ICT in Education Policy is
therefore seen as an epitomised version of the ultimate goal of transforming the educational system by the
Ministry and its sector stakeholders. It is intended to be a guide by which ICTs can be exploited in an
efficient and coordinated effort to support the education sector‟s own goals and operations, as well as
within the framework of the national development initiatives, including the National ICT4AD1 Policy.
The Policy document therefore seeks to provide policy directions for what needs to be done, as well as the
general framework in terms of how it will be implemented. Apart from this Policy document, it is
expected that a detailed ICT in Education Implementation Plan will be developed based on the outlined
policy directions.
ICTs are basically information handling tools – a varied set of goods, applications and services that are
used to produce, store, process, distribute and exchange information. They include „old‟ ICTs of radio,
television and telephone, and the „new‟ ICT of computers, satellite and wireless technology and the
Internet with their attendant tools. With appropriate content and applications, these tools are now able to
work together, and combine to form a „networked world‟ – a massive infrastructure of interconnected
telephone services, standardized computing hardware, the Internet, radio and television – which reaches
into every corner of the globe”.

Information technology means all equipment, processes, procedures and systems used to provide and
support information systems (both computerized and manual) within an organisation and those
reaching out to customers and suppliers. The term information and communication technology, ICT, was
coined to reflect the seamless convergence of digital processing and telecommunications. ICTs include
hardware, processes and systems that are used for storing, managing, communicating and sharing
information.

Planning for the effective use of these technologies is crucial if they are to have the positive impact
expected. Investing in ICTs is a costly decision for any country, whether developed or developing. For
developing countries such as Ghana, investing in ICTs presents the dilemma of spending scarce/valuable
resources on ICTs or consequently suffering from widening technological gap. As noted by Swarts (2006)
ICTs can be powerful, essential tools for learning: understanding, interpreting and communicating about
the real world OR they can be black holes into which we pour our money, intelligence and time, getting
very little in return.
Effectively used, ICTs can amongst other things:

 Provide multiple avenues for professional development of both pre-service and inservice
teachers, especially through distance education;
 Facilitate improved teaching and learning processes;
 Improve teacher knowledge, skills and attitudes and even inquiry;
 Improve educational management processes;
 Improve the consistency and quality of instruction both for formal and non-formal
 education;
 Increase opportunities for more student centred pedagogical approaches;
 Promote inclusive education by addressing inequalities in gender, language,
 disability;
 Widen the traditional sources of information and knowledge;
 Foster collaboration, creativity, higher order thinking skills;
 Provide for flexibility of delivery; and
 Reach student populations outside traditional education systems.

The efforts to introduce ICTs into the sector by the Ministry (primarily through the GES), its development
partners and other private sector agencies cover over ten (10) years. Initiatives have spanned pre-
tertiary (both public and private schools) and tertiary. Efforts have largely been geared towards the
deployment of ICTs to these facilities via the provision of computers and the establishment of ICT
laboratories. Access however is still below the standards and numbers demanded. Though
comparatively better, the concerns remain for tertiary level institutions. Additionally, there have been
several private sector initiatives to set up Community based ICT centres. These however have been
largely confined to urban areas with few available examples of how they have been used to support
educational objectives.

In a study carried out to review and assess the ICT in Education Initiatives in Ghana (2005), twenty
initiatives were selected and their impact assessed to see what lessons could be learnt. Several positive
achievements were noted. - Initiatives contributed to a wider number of students and teachers
acquiring ICT skills and developing strong interests in ICT and Science; - Schools involved in the initiatives
were motivated to expand the project and/or acquire more ICT equipment; a number of private-public
partners, including Parent Teachers Associations (PTAs) and civil society collaborated in the efforts; -
Lessons learnt from initiatives provided good examples for other schools to introduce their own ICT
programmes; 12 However, the projects themselves faced a number of challenges.

At least half of the initiatives had been launched as pilots with none expanded into national initiatives.
Implementation challenges include: - Poor selection of schools without the involvement of GES / MOE
resulting in duplication and hence some schools having several parallel initiatives while others
(especially those in the remote rural towns) had none - Lack of policy direction at all levels (schools,
districts, national) for the integration of ICT in education; - Heavy dependency on external funds, with
most initiatives stopped after depletion of initial funding - „Dumping‟ of obsolete and inappropriate
equipment as „ support‟ for the initiatives - Low levels of ownership at the level of the schools, due to
external motivations, and low levels of understanding on the part of recipients about the potentials of
ICTs in education - Lack of trained ICT personnel (including teachers) far below the numbers demanded
to support the initiatives with most capacity building efforts one-off with no continuous trainings
planned for Additionally, there was the recognition that to ensure success and sustainability, ICT in
Education projects should be implemented not necessarily to increase the number of computers, but
should instead be based on supporting discrete educational objectives. The lessons learned from the
initiatives further highlighted the need for a coordinated, focused and properly managed approach to
the adoption and utilization of ICTs. Such an approach could further improve the accessibility and
delivery of quality education and better maximize the impact of ICTs in Education.

Additionally, four key elements are seen as crucial to planning for ICTs within the sector. These four (4)
key elements are: - Equity - Access to ICT Infrastructure - Capacity Building, and - Norms & Standards.
EQUITY: The use of ICTs in education will involve have to involve strategic choices about resource
allocation. It is expected that the principle of equity will inform the approaches taken and provide the
basis for allocation. Informed decisions have to be taken about resource allocation(s) with care taken to
avoid cases where technology further amplifies existing in-country digital divides. It is for this reason
that the principle of equity will inform the selected approaches and strategies. This must also address
the issues of gender and special needs education.

ACCESS TO INFRASTRUCTURE: The expected impact on end-users (learners, teachers, managers and
administrators) will very much depend on affordable and continuous access to hardware, software and
connectivity. This in turn will be dependent on the availability of appropriate physical infrastructure
including classrooms and power sources (e.g. electricity or solar).

CAPACITY BUILDING: Lessons from ICT in education initiatives globally have proved that ICTs can only be
effectively exploited when the intended users are competent to do so. This implies that the user has the
requisite level of skills, knowledge and attitudes for using the technology for the tasks required.
Initiatives for professional development (pre-service and in-service), standards and norms of
performance for students incorporating project-based and other collaborative approaches that
integrates the use of technology into the curricula must be addressed. Set and approved ICT standards
for use that are aligned to job market requirements (demands) must be defined.

NORMS AND STANDARDS: Current initiatives and donations of software and hardware have sparked
debates on issues of open source, copyright, licensing, refurbishment and inter-operability. Further
defining nationally accepted norms and standards for use, content, connectivity, hardware, software,
technical support and community engagement also need to be addressed.

RESEARCH AREAS TO CONSIDER

 Education in emergency: post-covid effects on teaching and learning, and leaners and
teacher health post covid-19 pandemic.
 Complementary basic education: A viable pathway to inclusion and equitable quality
education for children and youth
 Complementary basic education: The Importance Of Innovative Pedagogies In Lower
Primary Public Schools In Ghana