The critical role of secondary education as a tool for social mobility especially for the underprivileged is widely admitted as it lays the foundation for lifelong learning opportunities. It is also a general recognition that education is a public good, hence the state must lead in its provision. No educational delivery arrangement must therefore see the state to be playing a peripheral role as that will be tantamount to the state relinquishing one of its core social responsibilities of providing enlightenment to the citizenry. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) which Ghana is committed to, acknowledges this and stipulates in goal 4 that by 2030, all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes. The 1992 constitution of Ghana also states, in article 25 (1) that, secondary education in its different forms including technical and vocational education shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means.

However, the responsibility of providing secondary education to all is large and complex for any government alone to meet adequately, the reason for which governments all over the world explore diverse ways of providing educational services to its citizens. In its 2016 Report on global education, the World Bank admonished countries to look for effective partnership in order to meet educational targets. The government of Ghana has over the years engaged with several non-state actors in the provision of education. One of such key partners is the private sector which has contributed to increased access to secondary education over the years and still has a huge potential that can be leveraged to expand access, increased funding, reduce overcrowding in public schools and promote quality secondary education for all. The private sector through development partners, NGOs, corporate organisations and philanthropists among others have contributed in various ways to provide educational services to communities through infrastructure, sponsorship programmes and direct education delivery programmes. Some of these interventions includes, state-religious bodies partnership, The education for All, CAMFED girls educational sponsorship, among many others.

Another key area of private sector contribution to secondary education delivery is the operations of private second cycle schools which has increased significantly by providing over 17% of admissions to second cycle schools as at 2016 according to the Ghana Education Report, 2017. Over the years, the partnership arrangements that has existed between the GES and private second cycle schools allows private schools to be placed on the computerized school placement which makes students to be posted to some well recognised private schools.

However, with the implementation of government free senior high school programme which aims at increasing access and promoting equitable quality secondary education, private schools appear to be losing students to the public schools amidst limited space in the latter. This has led to overcrowding in many public schools with other associated problems including students being posted to schools as day students in communities where they are total strangers. Meanwhile this has led to a corresponding decline in enrolments in private senior high schools as lamented by the Conference of Heads of Private Secondary Schools (CHOPSS) leading to the closure of several private schools. Meanwhile, the limited space in public senior high schools has led to the government implementing the double track system as a temporal measure to deal with the situation certainly seen by many as a desperate measure. It is my strongest conviction that, other options could be exploited to deal with the situation by harnessing the potentials of private schools in providing access and also the private sector in general in looking for sustainable funding and increasing accountability.

Private schools have the capacity to admit the additional numbers involved in the double track admissions. In the wake of the discussions leading to the implementation of the double track system, the CHOPSS had proposed to government to make use of the huge available space in private schools under some agreed arrangements. 

As indicated earlier, posting students to private senior high schools would not be something new as that was the case before the introduction of the free senior high school policy. In the face of limited space in public senior high schools, it is the opinion of many including myself that, government could have considered that option. That itself would be a way of boosting private sector participation in secondary education delivery in the country which is inevitable anyway, especially if we are to make education accessible to all. 

However, one important issue regarding private partnership in the delivery of secondary education has been the quality of education offered at private schools compared to public schools. Actually, the standards can be said to be similar and varies from school to school just as it is in public schools. There are several instances when private schools have emerged winners over well-known public schools in school academic competitions. For example in 2003, the Ghana Lebanon-Secondary School (GLISS), a private senior high school in Accra emerged overall winner (Southern sector) in a national competition on Greater Discipline organized by the office of the Vice-President. Also in the 2013-14 academic year, the same private school was the best performing school in the Greater Accra region in the GES ranking of school performance at WASSCE.

There are several other reasons why it will be beneficial for government to engage private second cycle schools in secondary education delivery in the country. The first point is to recognise the significant role played by private schools by first asking “who are those who attend private senior high schools?.” Those who do so do it both voluntarily and circumstantially.

There are those (hitherto) placed by the CSPSS, and others who were not placed in any school because they couldn’t meet placement requirement. There are also those who due to financial constraints could not enroll in their placed public school that year and had to defer their secondary education to the following year but will not be admitted in any public school. There also parents who have to change school for their wards due to change in location and yet will not be admitted in another public school (even under the free senior high school system). Yet, equity, inclusiveness, social justice principles and even the SDG goal 4 demands that all girls and boys irrespective of background and circumstance complete secondary school by 2030. All these students as huge as 36% of JHS graduates according to 2016 EMIS report, will be denied access to secondary education. Even under the free senior high school policy, not all students will be placed as one still need to meet certain requirement including passing English and Mathematics. It is the private senior high schools who fill these vacuum and provide the opportunity to some of these students who will be rejected by the system at the full cost of the parents of these students. Many of these students are the underprivileged from deprived communities who could not get access to better basic education. There are many notable Ghanaians who attended private senior high schools after not getting access to public schools and are currently impacting positively on society. 

In view of existing challenges as discussed above, it appears to me that government may not be able to achieve SDG goal 4 and meet constitutional obligations of making quality secondary education accessible to all if government does not explore the opportunities offered by the private sector and other stakeholders even with the implementation of the free senior high school policy. Government engagement with the private sector is almost inevitable. It only requires a stronger collaboration and effective monitoring to ensure that quality standards are met by private schools in providing secondary education.    

The writer is a Research Fellow and Head of Programmes at the Baraka Policy Institute (BPI), a policy Think Tank on Education and General well-being in Accra.

By Adam Yunus

E-mail: yunus.adam@barakapolicy.org/yuadamus2001@yahoo.com