E ducation has been accorded a high priority in development policy in most countries, including Ghana. Despite the intention, the expansion of education in the country has been slow as compared to some of the other developing countries. Given the crucial role that education plays in accelerating socio-economic development, public provisioning of education has been an important area of government intervention in the country.
Accordingly, ACT Africa undertakes in-depth research on government budgets at the National level to analyse the policy priorities for education, with emphasis on school education. In spite of government’s intention and efforts, gaps in quality of school education have been a major concern for some years now, especially in the policy discourse on government financing of education. Hence, ACT Africa’s research focuses on the budgetary priorities for school education overall and for various components within school education that are considered more relevant for enhancing quality of learning. We also examine the issues of equity and inclusion in the domain of public provisioning of education.
Another important area of research by ACT Africa focuses on the extent and quality of fund utilisation in some of the major central schemes for school education like the school feeding program. Our research tries to identify the systemic weaknesses and the institutional and procedural constraints, which need to be addressed so as to enable the State to enhance the effectiveness of their budgetary spending in the sector.