National Accreditation At the system’s level, there is a National Accreditation Board that ensures quality content and delivery of programm...
National Accreditation At the system’s level, there is a National Accreditation Board that ensures quality content and delivery of programmes in tertiary institutions. The accreditation process involves a thorough peer review for new universities. . Functional Literacy Programme The non-formal Education Division of the Ministry was established in 1991 tasked to carry out the eradication of illiteracy in Ghana by the year 2011. Statistics available indicates that through the functional literacy programme, national illiteracy rate has currently been reduced from 69% to 52%. Distance Education Distance education has been found to be an important option to meet the demand for higher education. The introduction of distance learning has reduced the cost of higher education for both the government and students. It has provided increased access to tertiary education.
Non – Governmental Organisations (NGOs) The NGOs provide major services to education, for example, school renovation and construction including teachers’ quarters, provision of educational materials, in-service training and up-grading of teachers skills, capacity building of P.T.A. functional literacy classes with non-formal education division, provision of school uniforms, teaching of science, mathematics and English in senior secondary schools. All these have contributed to the improvement of educational quality in Ghana. 8.CHALLENGES OF MAIN STREAMING INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE QUALITY EDUCATION Notwithstanding the many advantages of the mainstreaming programme in special education, there are several challenging situation that militate against its effective 26 implementation. Major challenges identified at the National Consultative Workshop and through individual discussions are listed below: . Lack of political will to incorporate research findings into policy initiatives and enforce the implementation of such initiatives. As an example, it was mentioned that research is replete with evidence to confirm the socio-cultural advantage of identifying and developing one indigenous national language for the country. Yet, the political will to initiate policy discussions on instituting a national local language for the country has been problematic. This has affected pupils’ learning of the L1 in schools. .
Financial constraints: this has been a major hindrance to mainstreaming change initiatives in the educational sector. . Absence of reliable and consistent database for targeted planning There is difficulty in getting reliable data to inform quality decision making. Relate to this is the absence of consistent methods for calculating resource requirement projections and their enhancement to commensurate with emerging needs and technologies of knowledge-based societies . Ineffective leadership and supervision of change initiative implementation in schools. . Threat from diseases. Death and physical defects emanating from malaria, HIV/AIDS and other diseases tend to affect the human capacity for supporting the implementation of mainstreamed initiatives. . Uneven distribution of human and material resources across the urban and rural communities. In rural or disadvantaged societies, facilites to support change initiatives are either non-available or inadequate to support he mainstreaming of quality education interventions in the country. . Lack of systematic and regular evidence of learning outcomes shown in terms of standard, competency attainment and what students really learn . Limited use of Information technology facilities to aid communication 27 . Measuring and reflecting private sector and community financial contributions towards EFA goals as reflected in strategies of public-private partnership – Engaging more strongly with local level governance and financing for quality outcomes
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