EDUCATION SECTOR POLICY

 Responsibility for the Education Sector

The Ministry of Education (MoE) has overall responsibility for education sector policy, planning and monitoring. Education delivery and implementation is devolved to institutions, Districts and Regions through various agencies of MoE. Of these, the Ghana Education Service (GES) is the agency that implements the Basic and Senior Secondary education components, including Technical and Vocational institutes. GES is therefore responsible for schools and, by virtue of the size of these sub-sectors, about four-fifths of the annual expenditure on education. The other agencies cover the rest of the education sector. Of these the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) have important sub-sectoral areas of responsibility regarding education delivery. Annex A contains an outline organogram of the MoE and its agencies.

Article 38 of the Constitution requires government to provide access to Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) and, depending on resource availability, to Senior Secondary, Technical and Tertiary education and life-long learning. MoE launched FCUBE in September 1995 with the goal of improving access to quality basic education over the 10 years to 2005. Its four broad strategic objectives were to:

These objectives equally apply to the whole education sector.

Delivery Systems
The formal education system is delivered through a number of institutions ranging from kindergarten classes to universities and polytechnics.