Households' Investment in Financing Education: Ghana's Recent Experience

ABSTRACT

The primary quest of governments, development partners (multilaterals and well-meaning civil societies) and Non-Governmental Organizations to end all forms of poverty and ensure dignified life for all under the UN declarations (MDGs and now SGDs) remains a prime policy target for all development stakeholders especially those in developing countries. The link between education, poverty reduction, healthy living and economic growth has been extensively studied in the literature. Public and private (largely households) are two popular educational funding sources in Ghana. In the era of scarce government resources, this thesis examines the contributions households make towards financing education (at all levels) for its members. The study adopts a quantitative research approach using cross sectional regression and probit analyses based on Ghana Living Standards Survey 6 (GLSS VI). The results show that household income has a significantly positive effect in determining households educational spending. Besides, household size, age of household head, employment status of household head, educational level of household head, and asset ownership of households largely have a positive effect on households‟ spending on education. The study recommends inter alia that the Government of Ghana should as a matter of urgency make commitments towards improving rural incomes by investing heavily in agriculture. This is projected to increase rural household income and rural household spending on education. Moreover, the government should increase educational commitments in vulnerable areas particularly rural and Savannah areas. The study proposes a pragmatic means of curbing upsurge in population without having a negative impact on future development. Lastly, the study proposes that since education level of household heads significantly influence households‟ educational spending, governments should institute and intensify adult educational programmes.