The Right to Free and Compulsory Primary Education in Ghana: Lessons for Other African Countries

Abstract

Ghana has over the years developed laws and policies that promotes to free and compulsory primary education. The path that education has taken in Ghana starting from the time of the missionaries, the colonialists, up to the independence and post independent era has reflected a systematic development that support free primary education. Ghana therefore offers a useful template for other countries in sub-Sahara Africa to follow suit owing to the use of policies and laws to actualize right to compulsory primary education. This article gives an analysis of the free primary education in both countries, through the use of national laws and policies on primary education concluding that African countries can draw lessons from the approach adopted by Ghana. The progress made in Ghana can therefore be applied by African countries that are willing to consider education as an important agenda for development.

Keywords: Ghana Free Education, Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE), Capitation Grant, Legal Frame Work.