MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

• GHANAS EXPERIENCE WITH THE CAPITATION GRANT
• Presented by
• Charles Yaw Aheto Tsegah
• Director, Planning Budgeting Monitoring and
  Evaluation (PBME) Division
• April 20, 2009

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Context

• ESP / GPRS II / White Paper / fCUBE
• Basic Education KG, Primary, JSS
• Basic Indicators Up to 2004 slow progress
  towards
• targets
• Missed MDG target on gender parity
• Access Slowly increasing GERs/NERs
• Quality Improving but still a concern
• A Q differences by region / gender

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Introduction of the capitation grant

• FCUBE introduced / school
• fees abolished but still cost
• sharing
• Slow progress towards MDGs
• / EFA
• HIPC Funds / FTI / GET
• Fund
• Focus on Gender / Deprived
• District

Pilot Capitation Grant in 40 districts (2004-2005)

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Pilot District Selection Criteria

• Input criteria
• Access criteria
• Achievement criteria

Selecting the most deprived districts
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Implementing the Pilot

• Initial plan from pilot to nationwide in 3 years
• Clear and straightforward guidelines developed
• Grant US 2.76 per boy, US3.86 per girl
• Purpose of the grant replace school levies
• Training district officials / head teachers
• Linkage with school plans
• Flow of funds use of banks
• Monitoring and financial controls

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• Impact on Enrolment
• Enrolment in deprived
• districts rose by 14.57
• Pilots districts performed
• better compared to national
• average (2003/04 and
• 2004/05)
• Deprived districts 5.34
• Other districts - (0.23)
• National - 1.36

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From Pilot To National

• Major cabinet decision to expand scheme
  nationwide after one year instead of planned 3
  year phasing out due to success stories in pilot
  districts coupled with public pressure.
• Nationwide programme started in 2005/2006
  academic year

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National Implementation Strategy

• Inter ministerial collaboration
• Training conducted countrywide to build capacity
  of staff
• Campaign for the abolition of fees

• Information dissemination
• Strengthening of decentralised structures
• Development of monitoring systems

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Funding

• From two main sources
• 2005/2006 funding 129 billion 14.72million
• HIPC - 47.5 billion 5.40 million
• Social Impact Mitigation Levy - 82.0 billion
  9.32 million
• 2006/2007 funding 138.9 billion 15.10million
• HIPC - 47.5 billion 5.40 million
• Social Impact Mitigation Levy - 91.4 billion
  9.70 million

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Enrolment Trends in Basic Schools
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Primary GER and GPI
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Enrolment Trends in Basic Schools
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Experiences

• Strong increase in enrolment pro-poor,
  benefiting deprived regions, girls
• Creation of momentum / political commitment /
  multi-sectoral collaboration / private sector
  partnerships waiving of bank charges
• Relatively strong financial system, e.g. bank
  accounts, has been key in implementation
• Proper information sharing important
• Capitation grants straightforward, simple
  interventions, making impact
• Clear guidelines are essential

Ministry of Education
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Challenges

• Our country experience in school fee abolition
  raise questions about the impact on education
  quality.
• Teacher Issues
• Classroom Construction
• Textbooks and School Materials
• Management of Capitation Grants
• School Management
• How do we then balance access and quality?

Ministry of Education
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1. Teacher Issues
When fees are removed, the greatest challenge is
to provide the needed supply of capable teachers
to cope with the surge and to give them adequate
support and in-service training How do we then
balance access and quality?
Ministry of Education
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Measures taken

• Immediate response strategies Pupil Teachers,
  NYEP
• Ensuring effective deployment and utilization of
  teachers
• Improving monitoring and inspection systems for
  teacher attendance and performance
• Providing teacher incentive schemes
• Using teacher supply and demand models

Ministry of Education
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2. Classroom Construction And Rehabilitation
Classroom construction and rehabilitation is a
major quality challenge because it is time
consuming and costly. The current school
inventory continues to decline due to countries
inability to sustain the level of need.
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Ministry of Education
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Measures taken

• Use of school mapping for site identification
• Setting up minimum/intermediate standards of
  construction
• Using mixed construction technologies
• Co-ordinating school construction/ rehabilitation

Ministry of Education
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3. Procurement And Distribution Of Textbooks
The most common and immediate measure to address
the quality concerns of School Fee Abolition is
to ensure increased, timely and adequate supply
of textbooks and other school materials.
Ministry of Education
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Measures taken

• Providing budget allocation for the procurement
  of additional textbooks
• Training and monitoring the use of books at the
  school level

Ministry of Education
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4. Empowering Schools Through Capitation Grants
School or capitation grants introduced to
replace the fees and revenue loss at the school
level may be key tools that ensure proper flow of
resources to the schools and have a positive
impact on both access and quality
Ministry of Education
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Measures taken

• Proper calculation of capitation grant amount
  with clear indications of which fees it replaces
• Using funding formula to address equity issues
• Need for good communication strategies
• Clear definition of funding sources
• Development of clear guidelines and effective
  systems for the operation of the grant including
  accountability measures
• Effective and regular training of stakeholders
• Development of alternative measures to address
  socio-cultural barriers

Ministry of Education
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5. Strengthening School Management as a key
Component Of Quality

• Weak monitoring systems for attendance and
  performance
• Decentralization process and enhancing capacities
  at the local level
• Maintaining community participation
• Problem of transparency, accountability and
  governance

Ministry of Education
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Way forward

• Decentralization of decisions to schools and
  local authorities and clarifying their roles and
  responsibilities
• Improving management and accountability systems
• Capacity building at the local level
• Improving the effective functioning of SMCs

Ministry of Education
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Way forward

• Over 600,000 children are still out of school,
  which requires the adoption of more proactive
  measures to ensure full enrolment.
• Support is required to deliver complementary
  basic education programmes something that the FTI
  funding mechanism should consider.

Ministry of Education
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