Taking Stock of the Education for All Initiative: A Spatial and Gender Perspective on Junior High School Graduation

Background and Purpose: In 2000, the international community assembled in Dakar, Senegal, to push for education for all by 2015, especially at the basic school level, regardless of gender or where people live. Since then, many countries including 11 in sub-Saharan Africa have improved basic school enrollment by an average of 20%. Notwithstanding the significant gains in enrollment, about a quarter of children who enroll are not likely to graduate from basic school (UNESCO, 2015). Graduation from the basic education level is an important milestone in every child’s educational trajectory and a critical step toward a transition to high school and beyond. While the overall low graduation rate remains a policy problem, even more concerning is that we know very little about the geographical and gender dimensions of the problem. Thus, this study uses the case of Ghana to offer longitudinal insights into (a) the scale and trajectories of basic school graduation, and (b) the gender and spatial nuances in the trends.

Methods: The study used a geographically referenced longitudinal dataset on the administrative districts in Ghana. The dataset provides five years of data on basic school graduation with the analytic sample ranging from 142 districts in 2009 to 169 in 2013. We used the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic tool in ArcGIS to conduct hot spot analysis to identify spatial clusters of statistically significant high or low graduation rates. The data were weighted and used to define spatial clusters of districts with higher than average graduation rate (classified as hot spots) and clusters of lower than expected graduation rates (classified as cold spots).

Results: Results of the Getis-Ord spatial analysis reveal statistically significant patterns of high clustering of the basic school graduation rate, with the hot spots in the South and the cold spots in the economically deprived North. The Northern regions of Ghana had a higher than usual concentration of districts with a low graduation rate, compared to other areas of the country. Choropleth maps reveal that the pattern of clustering is largely progressive from 2009 to 2013, suggesting a widening north-south gap over time. Results also reveal an interaction between gender and geographical location. Although predominantly rural, the northern regions had a significant concentration of districts where girls had higher graduation rates from 2011 through 2013 than their male counterparts.

Discussion & Conclusion: The findings reveal spatial and gender disparities in basic school graduation and its trajectory, although the spatial inequalities are worse compared to the gender inequalities. Gender parity programs may have been effective in narrowing the gender gap. On the other hand, the persistent spatial gaps in school graduation suggest that policymakers may need to increase resource allocation to deprived areas to close the gaps in school graduation rates. The implication for not addressing these disparities promptly is that for each passing year, more young people living in poor communities will continue to be socially excluded and deprived of viable pathways to acquire post-basic education and to become more productive citizens.