Lecture on basic education

1. Basic education
Dr. Johan Nordensvard
J.O.Nordensvard@soton.ac.uk
58/4069

2. Education
• Nation-building role
• –schools a key institution (lingua franca, unified
curriculum, national ideology, institutional presence,
political decentralization)
• Education as Political/Religous indoctrination/ideology?
• Education & democracy (Dewey)
• Education as a tool of social exclusion (e.g. apartheid)
• Education for social inclusion - ‘positive discrimination’ /
‘affirmative action’
• Education as emancipation (Freire)

3. Human rights and education
• Article 26.
• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at
least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary
education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional
education shall be made generally available and higher education
shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
• (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the
human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human
rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding,
tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious
groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the
maintenance of peace.
• (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that
shall be given to their children.

4. – Everyone has the right to education. Primary education should be
compulsory and free to all--International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, Article 13
– Women have equal rights in education. States shall ensure the
same conditions for career guidance, access to studies, teaching
staff and equipment. Stereotyped roles of men and women are to
be eliminated in all forms of education. Women must have the
same opportunities to benefit from scholarships and the same
access to continuing education. States shall ensure the reduction
of female drop-out rates and that woman have access to
educational information to help ensure that health and well-being
of families, including information on family planning.
– States shall take into account the special problems of rural women
and the significant roles they play. States shall ensure equal rights
of men and women to receive training and education….
– --Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women, Articles 10 and 14

5. • "States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination ... and
to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, color, or national
or ethnic origin, to equality before the law ... in the enjoyment of ... the right to
education and training...."
– --Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Article 5
– Education- The rights to free primary education, the availability of vocational
educating, and the need for measures to reduce the drop-out rates.
– Aims of education – Education should foster the development of the child
personality and talents preparation for a responsible adult life, respect for
human rights as well as the cultural and national values of the child’s country
and that of others.
– --Convention on the Rights of the Child, Articles 28 and 29
• "The States Parties ... To make primary education free and compulsory; make
secondary education in its different forms available and accessible to all; make
higher education equally accessible to all on the basis of individual capacity; assure
compliance by all with the obligation to attend school prescribed by law...; "
– --Convention against Discrimination in Education, Articles 3, 4, and 5

7. Education in developing countries
• Manpower: The initial focus of education policy in many Sub-
Saharan countries until to their independence was to ensure the
provision of the needed manpower to help with the
development process.
• Human capital: during the neo-liberal policies of the 1980s and
1990s education became seen as an investment in human
capital. Dependence in countries such as Ghana relies on
organisations such as the World Bank.
• Colonisation and Decolonisation: Education was seen as a
means to ensure integration in many of the newly independent
countries (Davis & Kalu Nwiwu, 2001).

8. Primary education
• The World Bank argues that higher education does not
generate a sufficient return on investment compared to
primary and basic education(Santos, 2006).
• Ndong-Jatta states that a “condition for qualifying for
World Bank assistance in the education sector was for
African countries to divert resources from higher
education and channel them instead towards primary
and basic education” (cited by Samoff & Carrol, 2003: 1).
• Ghana has aimed accordingly to create a strong focus on
primary education.

10. Tertiary level education subsidies
• •A university student in the South costs
between 90-150 times as much to educate as
a primary school pupil.
• •66% of government spending on education
benefits the wealthiest 20%.
• •The poorest 20% receive 3% of public
education spending. (UNICEF)

13. Free Primary Education
• The Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education Programme
(FCUBE) in Ghana was introduced 1995 - aiming for free
education for all by 2005
• The aspiration was a free, compulsory and qualitative basic
education for all school age children over 9 years.
• A further reform of education in 2007 in Ghana meant that free
education was extended from six to eleven years. This includes
junior secondary school (JSS) (Yamada & Ampiah, 2009: 63).
• A higher spending on education: between 1999 to 2006 there
was an increase in spending from 3.7 to 5.1% of GDP. Half of this
spending is dedicated to basic education (Yamada and Ampiah,
2009: 64).

14. Aim of FCUBE
• To support education policy and management.
• Examples:
• “Increasing instructional time,
• Reducing fees and levies,
• Improving head teachers' management skills and
motivation
• Improving school supervision
• Improving physical infrastructure
• Increasing the number of school places through the
large-scale construction of additional classrooms and
schools.” (Akyeampong, 2009: 181)

15. Parents – Government
• Government are supposed to finance free tuition,
textbooks, teaching and learning materials and
subsidise the cost of exercise book.
• Parents are expected to provide for the nutrition,
school uniforms, school bags and stationery and
transport of their children if needed (Akyeampong,
2009:181).

16. Limited Universalism
• FCUBE have problems in becoming universal:
• 84.1% of girls start primary school versus 90.7% of boys
(Nguyen and Wodon, 2013).
• Completion rates in transition between junior high to
senior are much lower for girls, at 51.2% for girls and
65.1% for boys (Nguyen and Wodon, 2013).

17. 1 Lack of quality
• It is assumed that a lower quality of education will attract
fewer pupils (including those from poorer backgrounds)
• Large rise in students per teacher: from 43:1 in 1996 to 63:1 in
2005 (Akyeampong, 2009:190).
• The numbers of untrained teachers have doubled in basic
education (Akyeampong, 2009)
• Trained teachers in deprived areas have become a rarity: from
55% in 2003/04 to 37% in 2007 (Akyeampong, 2009:190).
• Akyeampong argues that the “general low achievement level
in public schools could be counter-productive to efforts to
increase household demand for schooling, especially for those
for whom the opportunity costs outweigh the cost of
attendance” (Akyeampong, 2009:191).

18. 2 Hidden fees
• Akyeampong highlights education was free in theory but that
many schools was charging levies for other services to replace
lost tuition fees – indirect levies for extra-curricular activities
• If parents do not pay these levies the children are sent home.
District authorities are forcing the head teacher to collect
these levies.
• “District levies provided a backdoor for reinstating some fees.
If all fees had been abolished and other initiatives that further
offset the opportunity cost of schooling had been introduced,
the gains might have been higher” (Akyeampong, 2009:192).
• Capitation grants for schools in September 2005 reduced
some fees, increased enrolment but reduced funds for
education.

19. 3 The failure of the state and
informal welfare
• This has become more evident since structural adjustment
programmes have lead to an increasing dependence on the
informal sector (Clark & Manuh, 1991; Manuh, 1993).
• Hassim and Razavi argues that “[w]omen's unpaid care work
continues to form the bedrock on which social protection is
subsidized, with erosions in state provisioning impacting most
strongly on women” (2006:2)
• Women are overwhelmingly clustered in low-entry, low-
return type activities (Whitehead, 2004).

20. Mainstream solutions
• Akyeampong argues that one needs to
motivate people through economic incentives
• 1 Conditional cash transfer schemes
• 2 Increase the quality of education
• 3 Reduce the hidden fees
• 4 Replace households dependence on child
labour. (Akyeampong, 2009: 193).

21. Additional explanations
• 1 Informal economy
• 2 Duties towards kinship/communities
• 3 The failure of the state and informal welfare

24. Child labour
• Lewin and Akyeampong argue that formal education is
colliding with activities of Child Labour.
• “A survey on child labour in 2003 estimated that two thirds of
Ghanaian children combined school with work”
(Akyeampong, 2009: 187–188).
• The conflict lies in the fact that Children will work “to
supplement household income, or for their own upkeep”
(Akyeampong, 2009:193)
• Arat argues that child labour is “sustained by a triangular
foundation formed by three corner players: the employers,
parents and the state … [with] governments often turn[ing] a
blind eye to the practice because they are willing to welcome
any form of investment” (Arat, 2002: 182).

25. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG7R2hL
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