Link Community Development is a charity of nine partner organisations working to improve access to quality primary education in sub-Saharan Africa.

Kate Armstrong works with them and is currently out in Ghana, from where she’ll be sending us updates on their work and the ongoing challenges they’re working to tackle. She takes up the story in her introductory blog…

“Hello, I’m based in Edinburgh where Link facilitates educational partnerships between Scottish and African schools and raises awareness of the challenges facing African education. I’m currently spending a month in Ghana to see how our projects are impacting on schools in the rural Ashanti and Upper East regions.

Blog 1: The challenges of providing and accessing a quality primary education in Ghana.

Arriving in Ashanti, five hours by bus from the capital Accra, I am welcomed by the Director of Education, Mr Awuni with a handshake and a big smile from behind a desk piled high with school improvement plans and reports from the 58 primary schools in the region. Mr Awuni is clearly passionate about the possibilities for school improvement, eager to share his plans and keen to make me understand the challenges they face.

Top of his list of challenges is teacher supply and training. According to the Commission for Africa, Ghana has just a quarter of the teachers it needs to give every child in the country a quality primary education in a class of no more than 40 pupils. In rural areas the problem is especially acute and classes of 80 or more pupils to one teacher are not uncommon. Teachers are reluctant to stay in remote areas where access to electricity, healthcare and even adequate housing is limited, so rural schools are seriously understaffed.

I set off to visit Asisiriwa Methodist Primary School, one of the more accessible schools in the district, just half an hour from Ashanti. After leaving the tarmac road our 4-wheel drive car labours over endless potholes and we have to stop several times to allow the orange dust to settle before we can see where the road continues.

At the school curious pupils abandon their football practice and gather around the office where Asisiriwa’s Head Teacher explains that he is coping with the teacher shortage by employing “untrained” teachers: high school graduates who have completed a short induction to teaching course as part of a government initiative to support rural schools. These teachers are enthusiastic and hard working, but they lack the essential knowledge and teaching skills that are needed to deliver a quality education. As the Education for All Campaign states, “trained and motivated teachers are by far the most crucial ingredient in the provision of quality education for all”.

School funding is another serious obstacle to delivering quality education in Ghana. The government has started providing small “capitation” grants to all schools, based on the number of pupils enrolled, but these are insufficient to meet the many needs that schools have, and often they are delivered late. Like others in the region, Asisiriwa school is still waiting for the allocation which it should have received at the beginning of the academic year in August. As a result, essential teaching materials like chalk and notebooks are in short supply, while computer equipment can only be dreamed of.

Mr Awuni thinks that parents should take more responsibility for supporting their children’s education and provide the additional support that schools need to function effectively. At Akokofe Roman Catholic Primary School the community has done just that. The community leader tells me that they supplied land for the school, built all the classrooms and provided them with electricity without any help from the government. The Akokofe community is justifiably proud of this achievement, as a result of which hundreds of local children have the chance to go to school, but many other communities are too poor to follow their example and their children have to travel a long way to the nearest school. Freda Boateng, Link’s Programme Manager in Ashanti region, agrees that parents should invest in their children’s education and argues that all communities are able to make some contribution, but in poor, rural communities this contribution is often very small.
The reluctance of poor families to send their children to school is also influenced by the quality of education they receive once in the classroom. As schools struggle to supply enough teachers and equipment, many children fail to pass exams and have to repeat grades. In rural areas when children are not progressing through school they will drop out as families feel their time is better spent on tasks at home.Poverty is one of the biggest barriers children face in accessing education. In 1996 the government of Ghana abolished primary school fees and the capitation grants provided to schools are designed to eliminate any additional levies which might exclude children from poor backgrounds.

As a result, primary 1 enrolment has risen to over 90%, but there is a high drop out rate, especially in rural areas, which means that many children do not complete a full cycle of primary school. Poor families often rely on children’s labour for survival and this means withdrawing them from school. Girls are most likely to be affected as the division of labour within the household gives them responsibility for collecting water and firewood, helping their mother to cook and clean, and taking care of younger siblings while their mother goes out to work. Poor health is another obstacle. When family members fall ill children are often required to take care of them. With limited access to healthcare and an HIV prevalence rate of 2% (compared to 0.1% in the UK), illness of teachers, children and their families can be extremely disruptive to education.

A lack of school supervision makes it difficult to maintain education quality. In Ghana the District Departments of Education are responsible for ensuring the quality of teaching in primary schools through monthly visits to assess their progress and offer support. District staff are provided with motorbikes and a fuel allowance to help them reach remote schools, but often the allowance is too small and some of the most remote schools receive a visit only once a year.



Asisiriwa and Akokofe primary schools are packed with lively, excited children who are keen to learn. Their likelihood of them staying in school and getting the education they deserve depends on the quality of their teachers, the availability of learning materials, and their ability to overcome the barriers of poverty and ill health. These are huge challenges without simple solutions, but in partnership with Directors of Education like Mr Awuni, Link Community Development is supporting schools address them. Over the next 3 weeks I will be looking at some of the projects that Link and the District Departments of Education are working on to improve access to good quality primary education in Ghana. For more information about our work in Scotland and Africa please visit www.lcdinternational.org.”

Stay tuned for another update from Ghana later this week.

Related posts:
Global learning experiences for Teachers.

Visit Link Community Development Scotland’s website.