This volume arises from a cooperation between Ghanaian and German academics. It answers the need to have a more comprehensive and up to date volume which addresses key topics, areas and problems of the Ghanaian education system with a focus on history, policy, and curriculum-related issues. For many years now there have not been new comprehensive publications in this field, and it is necessary to introduce a lot of recent changes in Ghanas education system and reflect about their challenges. The information and positions collected in this volume will be of interest to Policy Makers, Educators, Lecturers, Scholars, Students, Teachers, Parents and other interested people of Ghana and other (West)-African countries. The book will also be of great interest to international scholars who want to understand the Ghanaian education system or are involved in academic projects such as internship, exchange programmes and joint research activities with Ghanaian academics and educational institutions. Akwasi Kwarteng Amoako-Gyampah (PhD) is a senior lecturer in the Department of History Education, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana and a senior research associate in the Department of History, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Bea Lundt is Prof. (emer.) of History and still teaches at the Europe University Flensburg (Germany). She is also Guest-Professor at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Ghana.

This book comprises six main chapters and addresses the core research question: How can the endurance of academic bias in Ghana’s secondary education system be explained in the context of educational reform versus change of government concurrence? Six sub-questions have subsequently been derived from the core research question, enabling a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of the subject matter of investigation. The manuscript adopts an historical institutionalism approach, combining path dependency with partisan theory in explicating structural persistence in the secondary school system in Ghana. A case study methodological design procedure has been employed in the investigation of three episodes of educational reform, anchored on qualitative content analysis as the main data reduction mechanism.

Expansion of basic education in Ghana was unprecedented and brought the country to the forefront in education in Africa. The report provides analysis, lessons and policy options to developing a post-MDG strategic agenda for basic education.

This book examines how an understanding of social-cultural and resource dynamics can inform the development of context-sensitive approaches to the early education and care of young deaf children, and the support of their caregivers. The authors investigate what it takes to facilitate deaf children's progress through early childhood, focusing on language, communication, learning, and well-being in the sub-Saharan African context of Ghana. They provide a review and critical discussion of the existing knowledge base surrounding early childhood deaf education and examine traditional and contemporary perspectives on childhood deafness and caregiving that are meaningful to the African early childhood deaf education landscape. The book draws on the knowledge and understanding developed through a collaborative UK-Ghana research project that examined the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) of young deaf children in Ghana. Examples from this project bring to life the issues surrounding caregiving, childhood deafness and early support in sub-Saharan Africa and advances voices from this context. As a co-authored text and collaboration between UK and Ghana researchers the work brings a new and context sensitive contribution to the examination of early education programming for young deaf children, addresses gaps in the global ECCE research, and shifts the traditional flow of knowledge to open the potential of south-north illumination and learning.

Religious Education in Malawi and Ghana contributes to the literature on opportunities and complexities of inclusive approaches to Religious Education (RE). It analyses how RE in Malawi and Ghana engages with religious pluralisation and provides a compelling case for the need to re-evaluate current approaches in the conceptualisation, curriculum design and delivery of RE in schools in Malawi and Ghana. The book explains how a pervasive tradition of selection involving exclusion and inclusion of religion in RE leads to misrepresentation, and in turn to misclusion of non-normative religions, where religion is included but marginalized and misrepresented. The book contributes to wider discourse of RE on opportunities as well as complexities of post-confessional approaches, including the need for RE to avoid perpetuating the continued legitimisation of selected religions, and in the process the delegitimization of the religious ‘other’ as a consequence of misrepresentation and misclusion. Inspired by Braten’s methodology for comparative studies in RE, the book draws on two qualitative studies from Malawi and Ghana to highlight the pervasive problems of religious misclusion in RE. This book will be of great interest for academics, scholars and post graduate students in the fields of RE, African education, educational policy, international education and comparative education..

This book provides an analytical exploration of the condition of teachers working in expanding school systems across the world, with a particular focus on the lives of women teachers in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing from award-winning research, it looks beyond the official portrayals of teachers’ lives in order to better understand the reality of the contexts in which teachers live and work. Positioning Amartya Sen’s capability approach at the heart of the study, each chapter considers documentary evidence alongside ethnographic research from rural, remote and under-resourced schools in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Sudan. Interweaving rich narratives from teachers in a variety of contexts, the book proposes a concept of professional capability and examines female teachers’ agency to pursue and achieve this in their classrooms. This key examination challenges existing notions of ‘quality education’ and reveals insights into the broader purpose of schooling for rural communities. Quality Teaching and the Capability Approach will be of value to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in education, particularly those concerned with gender, development and teaching, as well as educationalists and policy makers concerned with education and development.

This is the first book that examines Ghana's compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Ghana being the first country to ratify the Convention, it thus fills an important gap in the literature on Ghana. The book throws a searchlight on a wide range of rights issues including children's identity, violence against children and women, child exploitation and children in conflict with the law plus a host of other CRC related issues and further identifies and explains the main obstacles in the way of realizing children's rights in Ghana. A major strength of this book is that the contributors, Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians alike have vast experience in empirical research in Ghana and most importantly, come from diverse academic disciplines. Researchers, instructors, and students of Social Work, Sociology, Criminology Human Rights, Education and Law, are examples of a few academic disciplines that would find this book a welcome relief in their search for relevant and current data on children's issues in Ghana. It should also be of great interest to policy makers, human rights activists, Children's NGOs and international development partners interested in children's issues.