Educational Reforms in the Recent Past in the Light of Functional Development – The Education Ghana Requires for Take-Off
- July 31, 2019
- Posted by: RSIS
- Category: Social Science
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue VII, July 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186
Daniel Amofa*, Ibrahim Musah
National Development Planning Commission, Cantonments-Accra, Ghana
Abstract– The development of every country largely thrives on the quality of her human resource capital. This requires a robust and sustained quality education accessible to all. Empirical and statistical evidence suggest countries that have most of their citizens attaining satisfactory levels of education have experienced an appreciable level of economic growth and low unemployment rates. This has spiralled the need for countries to continuously reform and structure their education system to meet the changing needs of their countries. Since independence, Ghana’s education system has gone through many reforms in the light of ensuring quality and equitable access to education. This among others is to ensure the country has a well-educated and trained human resource base to steer her development agenda. In spite of the many reforms the country’s educational system has witnessed, there is widespread criticism that calls for curriculum restructuring. Many have argued and stressed the need for Ghana to draw inspiration from global best practices. Therefore, this study examines best practices from some of the top-ranked countries with a quality education system globally. The Singaporean, Finnish and Republic of Korea educational systems were studied as they are among the top-ranked globally. One thing worthy of notice in these educational systems is their flexibility and how they have been aligned to their national development agenda. This has played a major role in their development transformation over the years. Therefore, as part of the calls for new educational reforms in Ghana, many have proposed a curriculum change that focuses on pragmatism deviating from the highly theoretical nature of the education system. This is believed to set the country on a path of development realism that gives the country a sense of focus in the development transformation envisaged for.
Key words: Education, Reforms, Development.
I. INTRODUCTION
Sustained and meaningful access to education is critical to long-term improvements in productivity, the reduction of intergenerational cycles of poverty, preventive health care, the empowerment of women and reductions in inequality (Lewin, 2015).
