Free Senior High School Policy: Implications to Education Access Equity in Ghana (Published)
Equity in education is when every student receives the resources needed to acquire the basic work skills of reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. While Ghana has achieved near universal access to primary and lower secondary education, the gross enrollment rate in higher secondary education was below 45 percent in 2014, with large disparities in access. In the year 2017, the government of Ghana implemented a free SHS policy on a free access to secondary education for all. This research sought to investigate the implications of the free senior high school policy to educational access and equity in secondary education in Ghana. The document analysis approach was adopted for this study. The findings revealed that the free SHS policy has really increased enrollment figures in secondary schools’ attendance. The researcher recommended that parents, teachers, school administrators, policy analysts and relevant stakeholders have the responsibility to offer alternative proposals and do so in a manner that is constructive and helpful to the policy discourse.
Keywords: Access, Education, Equity, Quality, enrolment, equality, free senior high school