International literacy day

Today is International Literacy Day. The day has been commemorated since 1966 to raise awareness of the benefits of literacy at the individual, national and global levels. This awareness is necessary as the UN estimates that 617 million youth worldwide do not have basic literacy skills with a quarter of the world's illiterate population living in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The theme for this year is Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. 

About 3 out of 10 Ghanaian children have not engaged in any learning activities since March

We discussed the implications of school closures on educational inequality in Ghana as not all children would be able to participate in virtual learning programmes because they did not have access to radio, TV, and/or internet.

The Ghana Statistical Service report from the first wave of their household and jobs survey confirms that a substantial proportion of children have not been able to engage in virtual learning since March.

Covid-19 lockdown and educational inequality

The three-week lockdown in parts of the country has ended but all schools in the country are to continue to remain closed.

The Ministry of Education requests that students "Tune in to the Ghana Broadcasting Free to air Learning Channel GLTV (also on GoTV and DSTV), log in to www.iCampusGh.com (SHS students only) and use the Ghana Library Authority app to access various lessons, assessments and books‬."

This mode of service delivery raises the question, how many children will be able to access the educational material on television or online?

International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science

It's also that time of the year in Ghana where the annual National Science and Math Quiz (NSMQ) excitement begins to build across the country. A look at the winner's list indicates that no girls school has ever won the competition in its 25 year history. A mixed-sex school has won twice in 1998 and 2004; all other winners have been all boys schools.

Girls tend to lag behind boys in science, globally and not just in Ghana. Females lag behind males in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields - both in school and in the labour force. Females are more likely to enrolled in STEM educational programmes or working in STEM jobs.

Today is International Day of Education

Education is considered a human right and every child has the right to have basic education.

Investing in education is critical for countries because education investments yield enormous individual and societal rewards. In the areas of population and health, education, particularly of women leads to later age at marriage and first birth, higher use of family planning, better maternal and child health, greater survival of children and higher life expectancy.   

Also of importance is the need for countries need to invest in quality education because that is what leads to learning and skills development.

Learning-adjusted years of schooling

In honour of International Day of Education tomorrow, we will look further at the educational component of the Human Capital Index discussed earlier.