Godred is 6 years old. He lives in Fosu, a small rural town located near Nkawkaw in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Near the base of the Kwahu Mountains, most families in Fosu work in agriculture, growing crops such as cocoa, maize, and cassava. You can access the town by car, bus or Tro Tro, which are local mini-buses.
There is a primary school and a small health centre in the town, as well as a few shops and markets for buying basic necessities. Godred started school at 4 years old aiming to become a trader when he鈥檚 older. He has 3 older siblings: Papa Kwasi, who he calls Nathaniel, Mary and Esther. They help him carry out his homework
鈥淲hen I wake up in the morning I eat banku and peanut soup鈥, says Godfred. Banku is a type of dough made of corn and cassava, similar to Fufu. He washes the pots and sweeps the floor before starting the 3 kilometre journey to school. The next time he will eat is at the end of the day.
Godfred鈥檚 father has passed away, but a lot of emphasis is put on education by his mother, Margret. She stopped school early and is not able to read. 鈥淓ven with writing it is very limited鈥 she said. 鈥淪ometimes there is information from outside and nobody can read it because it is often difficult鈥 I don鈥檛 want my children to suffer the way I did because I couldn鈥檛 go to school.鈥
The good news is that more children are accessing Ghana every year, with faster improvement than in many of its neighbouring countries. The percentage of children completing primary school in the country increased from 57% in 2000 to 77% twenty years later.
Out-of-school numbers are decreasing across all education levels in Ghana
But families like Margaret鈥檚 are not sending their children to school for the sake of it. They hope they will come away better off as a result.
鈥淲hat I want for all my children is for the to learn! That is what my heart wants that the acquire a lot of knowledge at school鈥 she told us.
But, while there is some recent encouraging progress in reading, learning outcomes remain low. Grade 2 pupils aged just one year older than Godfred can read an average of just 2.5 words per minute, with up to three-quarters of children unable to read a single word.
Children in Africa are five times less likely to learn the basics than children elsewhere
This is where the work of Owusu, Godfred鈥檚 teacher is important. She has been at his school for 11 months, and counts herself lucky getting a good start in school with both parents alive. After training, she came to Fosu to teach, facing 40 students each day. She has picked up a few tricks for making sure the children attend class every day: 鈥渢hey always come to school because I always make the class lively and because I always share trophies and biscuits鈥.
Without many textbooks in the class to support her, she also has her own way of helping children learn the basics. 鈥淭he method I use to teach is look and see: they say what they see. And during counting I use a bundle of straws, or sticks. Then for reading I use manila (paper) cards, plastic letters and sometimes there's books in teaching literacy. Sometimes I use videos from my phone to teach for them to understand.鈥
Children鈥檚 chances of completing change depending on where they live and their family鈥檚 income, however. In Ghana, only .
The rapid economic growth in Ghana was stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing its poverty rate increase from 25% in 2019 to 25.5% in 2020. This makes paying for education difficult, particularly in Ghana, where , with the remaining third covered by the government.
鈥淕odfred is a very calm boy and I鈥檝e known him for a while. He always comes to school early, but due to little problems like financial problems, he always comes to school without books. Sometimes I support him with the little that I have. He is very active in class but sometimes he doesn鈥檛 participate because he doesn鈥檛 have exercise books. So he鈥檒l be sleeping and doing other things鈥.
The frustration of not having the materials he needs is palpable when we speak to his older sister, Mary. 鈥淕odfred is happy when he comes to school,鈥 she told us, 鈥渂ut when he asks our mum to buy a book and she does not have the money he is very upset.鈥
Children's learning will depend upon their income until textbooks are provided for all. NaCCA-approved textbooks should be printed and distributed for all subjects and classes covered by the 2019 Ghana curriculum as an urgent priority. Efforts should also be made to provide teachers with guidance on creating low-cost and no-cost teaching and learning materials. This could be a possible focus of some teacher professional learning community sessions.
New resources could be injected into the system to help families like Godfred's get the best from their education if there were new funding mechanisms for basic education including (i) a dedicated basic education funding mechanism similar to the Ghana Education Trust; (ii) a results-based payment element to drive a focus on efficiency and outputs rather than inputs.
Godfred speaks Twi at home, a dialect of the spoken in Ghana by several million people, mainly of the , the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Ghana is highlighted in the Born to Learn Spotlight Report for using home language in education under the Learning early grade reading programme funded by USAID. At most one in five children in Africa are taught in a language they understand. The data we have shows that those not being taught in their home language will have learning outcomes 30% lower than the rest, making it a critical issue.
Owusu has taken it upon herself to provide a bilingual education to the children in Godfred's class. "I always use the L1 L2 (first and second language) to teach my students in class. I blend them because it helps them to understand more using English and Twi."
Teachers like Owusu could benefit a lot from learning from each other when teaching children the basics. Professional learning communities among teachers could help them share learning on what works, for instance on issues such as phonics and teaching at the right level