Reforms and education inequality in Ghana

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Clifford Afoakwah,Xin Deng,Ilke Onur
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12961

REGULAR ARTICLE

Reforms and education inequality in Ghana

Clifford Afoakwah

1

| Xin Deng

2

| Ilke Onur

3

1

Centre for Applied Health Economics

(CAHE), Griffith University, Nathan,

Queensland, Australia

2

UniSA Business, University of South

Australia, Adelaide, South Australia,

Australia

3

College of Business, Government and

Law, Flinders University, Adelaide, South

Australia, Australia

Correspondence

Xin Deng, UniSA Business, University of

South Australia, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide,

SA 5001, Australia.

Email: xin.deng@unisa.edu.au

Funding information

Australian Government Research

Training Program (RTP)

Abstract

We analyze the evolvement of education inequality and

the gender gap in Ghana before and after two

major education reforms. Using different measures of

inequality, our findings suggest that the gender gap at

the basic school level has closed following the introduc-

tion of the education expansion policies, but inequal-

ities persist at the postbasic school levels and across

regions. We further demonstrate that the educational

expansion–schooling inequality nexus is best illustrated

by an inverted U-shaped Kuznets curve. We find that

after an average of 6 years of schooling has been

reached, inequality starts to decline, and gender equal-

ity can be achieved when the average years of school-

ing reach 9.

KEYWORDS

education inequality, education reforms, gender gap, Kuznets

curve, sub-Saharan Africa

JEL CLASSIFICATION

D63, I24, I28

1|INTRODUCTION

Education is one of the most important contributors of economic development, and unequal dis-

tribution of educational opportunities and outcomes could lead to the intergenerational transfer

of unequal opportunities. This is on the premise that education improves people's ability to build

wealth and assets and enhance social welfare (Thomas, Wang, & Fan, 2001). Human capital has

Received: 25 August 2020 Revised: 23 October 2022 Accepted: 7 November 2022

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12961

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,

distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2022 The Authors. Review of Development Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Rev Dev Econ. 2023;27:853–878. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode 853

been shown as the more robust factor to overcome inequality than technology and trade

(Sequeira, Santos,& Ferreira, 2017). A more equal distribution of education opportunity is argued

to be a catalyst to reduce poverty and income inequality (Földv

ari & van Leeuwen, 2011;

Grimm, 2005;Park,1996), and social institutions have a big role to play in shaping education

equality (Fontanella, Sarra, & Di Zio, 2020). There have been major attempts by governments

across the world to equalize educational opportunities. However, government policies could have

diverse impacts on different population cohorts and regions, and a rising inequality in certain

groups can exist while an overall declinein inequality at the national level is observed.

We examine the evolvement of education inequalities following two major policy reforms in

Ghana in 1987 and 1992. Ghana joined other sub-Saharan African nations by embarking on a

major education sector restructuring wave that began in the 1960s.

1

The primary objectives of

the restructuring were to improve people's access to education, especially for those who were

disadvantaged such as women and the poor, and subsequently equality in access to education.

These reforms replaced the education system with a modern approach that sought to provide

the human capacity needed for the growing economies, while other reforms made basic

2

educa-

tion free and compulsory (see IMF, 1998,1999; Osuafor, 2012). To close the gender gap in

schooling, the Basic Education Division of the Ghana Education Service set up the Females'

Education Unit in 1997 and was tasked to coordinate and implement activities to improve

female education (Adamu-Issah, Elden, Forson, & Schrofer, 2007). While there is substantial

literature examining the determinants of household education decisions such as enrollment

(Iddrisu, Danquah, & Quartey, 2017a), education expenditure (Iddrisu, Danquah, &

Quartey, 2017b), and school choices (Gaddah, Munro, & Quartey, 2015; Gaddah, Munro, &

Quartey, 2016) in Ghana, it is unclear how educational gaps have evolved following those

reforms and whether the evolvement differs in different regions and population cohorts.

Accordingly, this paper utilizes five rounds of nationally representative household survey data

to depict the trajectory of education inequalities over a period of 25 years with particular refer-

ence to the gender gap and spatial distribution.

Education and gender equality are an important part of the United Nations' Millennium

Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals (UNDP, 2015). Gender inequality

in education is a major policy concern because it tends to undermine the economic fortunes of

developing countries. Klasen (2002) shows that sub-Saharan African countries' economic

growth rates would have been 0.14%, 0.17%, and 0.36% higher than what has been achieved,

had they focused on more gender-balanced education in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, respec-

tively. Gender balance is therefore one of the primary goals of the government's policy aiming

to improve education equality, especially considering that the benefits of gender equality are

likely to extend to the labor market and the next generation, such as better health outcomes

among children (Christiaensen & Alderman, 2004). As noted by Mongan, Santin, and Valiño

(2011), a good public policy targeting equality of opportunity, especially in education, should

have consequences for the choices people make that are different from those originating from

their prevailing socioeconomic conditions. However, there exists evidence to demonstrate the

limited impact of education policies on the social economic composition of student participa-

tion (Chapman & Ryan, 2002; Le, Miller, Slutske, & Martin, 2011). It is thus natural to investi-

gate how the overall education inequality

3

and the gender gap have evolved since the

educational reforms in Ghana.

In addition to evaluating the evolution of education inequality before and after education

reforms across different spectrums, we interrogate the link between educational expansion and

inequality through the educational Kuznets curve, which models the educational expansion–

854 AFOAKWAH ET AL.