MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

EDUCATION FINANCE BRIEF, GHANA

(COUNTRY PRESENTATION)

HARMONY HOTEL, ADDIS ABABA

November 07, 2012

 BACKGROUND ON THE EDUCATION
FINANCE BRIEF

CONTEXT:
This education finance brief is produced in the context of the
UIS education finance capacity building project.
PURPOSE:
The purpose is to provide an overview of the education
financing in Ghana over the last decade.
CONTENT:
The document is structured around key policy questions based
on the availability of data. These policy questions are
extracted from a list of ten questions suggested by UIS in
the framework of the project.
 THE TEN POLICY QUESTIONS
1. How large is the public education expenditure in your
country?
2. What is the breakdown of expenditure by levels of
government and administration (ministries)?
3. What is the breakdown of current and capital expenditure?
4. How much is allocated to each level of education?
5. How much is allocated to different nature of expenditure?
6. How large is the contribution of development partners in
educational development?
7. How large is the households expenditure in educational
development? (If data are available)
8. How much is spent for each student at each level of
education?
9. Is public education expenditure spent in an equitable
manner (if data are available and this is a serious concern to
your country)?
10. Is remuneration policy sustainable (if data are available and
this is a serious concern to your country)?
 Q1: How large is the public education
expenditure in Ghana?
Current Situation
In 2010, the government of
Ghana spent GH
2,564,363,357 for the
education sector.
Government total spending in
Ghana for 2010 was GH
11,039,923,940.
In 2010, education expenditure
as a % of total government
expenditure
was 23.2%.
From 2004-2010 the education
expenditures as % of total
government expenditures
ranged between 18.3% and
26.5%. After a downward
pattern from 2005 to 2007, it
has been in growing trend since
Situation Against Benchmarks
2008.
FTI target for education expenditure as a % of total government expenditure is 20%.
Ghana, with the exception of 2008 (18.3%) has met the target from 2004 to 2010.
In 2010 Ghana was 3.2 percentage points beyond the FTI target.
 Q1: How large is the public education
expenditure in Ghana (contd)?

Policy recommendation:
Currently, Ghana allocates 23.20% of its budget to education while FTI benchmark recommends
20%. This implies that government is spending more than it should on Education. Ghana needs to
improve upon the internal efficiency of education management in order to create value for money
through;

(i) Efficient use of resources.

The biometric registration of all Civil and Public service staff.
Strict adherence to the procurement law.
Meeting the required PTR across the various levels of education.

(ii) Efficient targeting mechanism for policy interventions.

The introduction of the common targeting mechanism among five (5) sector ministries,
Education, Health, Employment and Social Welfare, Local Government and Agriculture.
Periodic monitoring and evaluation of social protection programs like Free School
Uniform Program among others.
 Q1: How large is the public education
expenditure in Ghana (contd)?
Ghana compared to
ECOWAS countries

Between 2006-2009, Ghana

allocated 23.1% of its resources
to education,
which is second highest among the
10 neighbouring countries.

Among the ECOWAS sub-region,

Ghana ranks 2nd in terms of share
of Government expenditure allocated
to education after Cote dIvoire.

The 3 countries with lowest

shares are: Liberia (12.1%), Cape
Verde (13.8%) and Benin (15.9%).
 Q1: How large is the public education
expenditure in Ghana (contd)?

International Comparison of Education Expenditure as a % of Total Government

Expenditure

Ghana compared to
some SADC countries
In 2009, most SADC
countries reported higher GDP
per capita than Ghana.
However in 2006-2009, the %
of Ghanas public expenditure
on education as a % of total
government expenditure ranks
1st among SADC countries.
Q2: What is the breakdown of expenditure by
levels of government and administration
(ministries)?

The Ministry of Education implements education budget in Ghana. The

ministries that are providing educational services in the country include the
Ministry of Education (MoE), the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Food and
Agriculture, the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, the Ministry of
Youth and Sports. The MoE is by far the main educational services provider in
Ghana. Government expenditure for the MoE usually represents more than
90% of the total Public Education Expenditure. Breakdown of education
expenditure by other sector ministries is not readily available.
 Q3: What is the breakdown of current and
Ghanas current education
capital expenditure?
expenditure increased from GH
123,969,039 in 2004 to GH
2,131,174,643 in 2010.
For the same period, capital
expenditure increased from
GH25,993,098 to GH
433,188,894.
In 2010 current expenditure
represents 83.1% of total
education expenditure as
against 16.9% of capital
expenditure.

The figure shows that capital

expenditure from 2008 to
2010 represented of
Ghanas total expenditure on
education.
Over the years, current
expenditure increased from
65.3% in 2005 to 83.1% in
2010.
Over the same period, capital
expenditure dropped from a
high of 34.7% to 16.9%. That
 Q4: How much is allocated to
each level of education?
Analysis of Public Expenditure Average Allocation of Resources to Different Levels of Education (2006-2010)
by Levels of Education

From 2006 to 2010, primary

education has been allocated
with an average of 31.2% of
the total government
expenditure on education.

Average allocation to Special

Education, Non-formal and
TVET education is just a little
over 2% over the same
period.
 each level of education
(contd)?
Analysis of Public Expenditure on
Primary Education

In 2010 Ghanas resource

Expenditure by Level of Education in 2010
allocation to primary education was
27.9%. This was 22.1 p.p. less than
the benchmark set by EFA-FTI
(50%).
Less than 1% of the countrys total
expenditure was expended on
Special Education (SPED) and Non-
Formal Education in 2010
respectively.
Expenditure on tertiary education
ranked 2nd to that of primary
education. That was 20.0% of the
total allocation to education went to
tertiary level of education.
In 2010, the government of Ghana
expended 45.1% of her resource
allocation to education on Basic
education (Pre-school to Junior
High School).
 Q5: How much is allocated to different nature
of expenditure?
There was a gradual decline of
resource allocation to primary
education in Ghana from 2008 to 2010.
Resource allocation to primary Evolution of Education Expenditure allocated to primary as a % of Public
Government Expenditure at all Levels: 2006-2010
education as at 2010 summed up to
27.9%.
Expenditure on primary education was
highest between 2007 and 2008. That
may be partly due the mainstreaming
of pre-school as part of primary
education at the time. The
expenditures were 35.0% and 35.2%
respectively.
In 2008, most ECOWAS countries
allocated more resources to primary
education than Ghana.
Ghana may have to increase
substantially resource allocation to
primary education in order to meet
EFA-FTI benchmark and also catch up
with the sub-regional average.
 How much is allocated to different nature of
expenditure?

In 2010, for all levels of education,

current expenditure was higher than
capital expenditure.
Current and Capital Expenditure by Level of Education, 2010
With the exception of Upper
Secondary, Special and Tertiary
Education levels, capital
expenditure for 2010 was less than
10% of the total education
expenditures to such levels as Pre-
school, Primary, JHS, NFED and
Teacher Education.
Special Education had a fair
balance between current and capital
expenditures in 2010. That was
56.1% of current expenditure as
against 43.9% of capital
expenditure.
 Q6: How large is the contribution of
development partners in educational
development?
Contribution of Development Partners in education development as
a % Education Expenditure
Total contribution of
Development Partners to
education in 2010 summed
up to GH64,742,440.45.
The above figure was 2.5%
of total resource allocated to
the education sector in that
year.
Donor financing to education
over the years dropped from
a high of 8.9% in 2005 to
2.5% in relation to total
education expenditure for
2010.
 Q7: How large is households
expenditure in educational
development?
Despite the introduction of free and Compulsory Universal Basic Education (fCUBE) programme
embarked on by the Ministry of Education during the Education Reform (1987), households
continue to contribute in one way or the other towards the education of children of school going age.

1. Existence of rural-urban OTHE

differences in household R RURAL RURAL ALL
expenditures in schools and ITEM ACCRA
URBA
N
COASTA
L RURAL
SAVAN
NA
AMOUN
T %
colleges.
School and
Registration Fess 99.50 35.05 8.27 11.33 4.02 25.13 28.3
2.Amount spent by households Contributions to PTA 2.74 1.99 0.90 0.92 0.50 1.29 1.5
on education increases as Uniforms, Sports &
Clothes 9.44 55.84 4.52 4.28 3.14 5.06 5.7
one moves higher on the
education ladder. This is Books and School
28.12 11.41 5.00 4.90 2.40 8.49 9.6
Supplies
particularly so with the Transportation 30.92 6.22 4.32 2.96 0.51 6.37 7.2
proportion of the total Food, Boarding &
amount spent on school and Lodging 88.59 43.58 29.15 31.00 9.96 36.10 40.7
registration fees as well as Expenses on Extra
the amount spent on books Classes 20.14 7.39 3.21 3.38 0.51 5.64 6.4
In-kind Expenses 1.35 0.54 0.64 0.49 0.19 0.56 0.6
and school supplies. 280.80 162.02 56.01 59.26 21.23 88.64 100.0
Total
 Q7: How large is households
expenditure in educational
development?

Policy Recommendation

The Government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Education has vigorously embarked
on interventions to pupils in basic public schools in recent time. For 2012,

Capitation Grant (100%),

Free Exercise Books (12.1 million)
Free Uniforms (428,155)
Free Meals (1.4 million children)
Laptops (60,000).

However with the exception of the Capitation Grant, these programs cannot be said to
have achieved 100% coverage. Probably there is the need to retarget the vulnerable
(rural coastal, forest & savanna) to improve on level of equity.
 Q8: How much is spent for each student at
each level of education?
Unit Cost per Child by Level of Education, 2004-2010

Unit cost per child increases as pupils progress through the

educational ladder. For instance in 2010, it cost the country GH
213.75 to educate a child at the primary level. At the same time an
amount of GH1,988.62 was expended on the one at the tertiary
level.
 Q8: How much is spent for each student
at each level of education?
Unit cost for Primary education in
Ghana steadily increased from GH
45.79 in 2006 to GH213.8 in 2010 Unit Cost per Child by Level of Education, 2006-2009
which represent about 467%
600.00
increase.
Over the same period, unit cost at 500.00
the Lower Secondary moved from
GH83.69 to GH319.6 which is 400.00
382% increase.
Unit cost at the Upper Secondary Unit Cost in GH 300.00
level rather shows an oscillating
curve. From a unit cost of GH 200.00
134.65 in 2006, the cost moved to
an all time high of GH558.36 in 100.00
2009 and dropped to GH397.3 in
2010. 0.00
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Policy Implication
As part of the new education reform introduced in 2007 to extend the duration of Senior High School
duration to four years, massive investment was made in 2009 to accommodate the first cohort of forth
year in 2010.
THE GHANA TEAM INSTITUTION
Edward Dogbey MOE
Elliot Nii Lantey Lamptey MOE
Kwame Agyapong Apiadu-Agyin MOE
Robert Ntseful GES
Emmanuel Amoah GES
Baba Seidu Fuseini MOFEP
Emmanuel Newman (Dr) NCTE