Information for Education Policy, Planning, Management, and Accountability in Ghana:

Transcription

1 EdData II Information for Education Policy, Planning, Management, and Accountability in Ghana: Report of Findings of the Data Capacity Assessment of Ghana s Education Sector, June 2011 EdData II Technical and Managerial Assistance, Task Number 11 Contract Number EHC-E Strategic Objective 3 19 September 2011 This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by a team of RTI International staff and consultants.

2 Information for Education Policy, Planning, Management, and Accountability in Ghana: Report of Findings of the Data Capacity Assessment of Ghana s Education Sector, June 2011 Prepared for United States Agency for International Development Prepared by Jennifer E. Spratt, Christopher Cummiskey, and Amy Mulcahy-Dunn, RTI International; and Helen Perry, Consultant RTI International 3040 Cornwallis Road Post Office Box Research Triangle Park, NC RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute. The authors views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

3 Table of Contents List of Tables... vi List of Figures... vi Acknowledgments... vii Abbreviations... viii Executive Summary Purpose and Objectives of the Assessment Approach and Methods Employed Data collection and fieldwork Document review Interviews with principal users of education sector data and information Interviews with managers of data and information systems Guiding questions Analysis process Limitations Ghana s Medium-Term Planning Context Overview of Ghana s current education goals and objectives Education management structure and the policy-planning-management-review cycle Management structures New standard-setting and advisory agencies The medium-term planning process Commitment to information-based performance management USAID s education strategy directions Findings on Data and Information Needs and Uses Information for strategic functions: Needs, sources and challenges Ghana's framing of strategic information for the education sector Use of information in national medium-term and annual planning Resource allocations, funding formulas, and deprived districts System performance management and evaluation Information for operational functions District management of national-level requests for data and information Decentralized planning and budgeting Information for Education Policy Planning, iii

4 4.2.3 Financial management Teacher deployment, management, and capacity development Teaching and learning curriculum and materials School management Information for accountability Accountability and system management Accountability to the broader public Overview of Key Existing Information Systems for Basic and Secondary Education Education Management Information System (EMIS) Student learning assessment and examinations data systems GES Budget and financial management information systems Customized ActiveX database for budget development Managing data on expenditures and for resource distribution Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) GES human resources information management Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD) HRMD paper-based systems Other Education sector approaches to managing strategic and operational information Basic Education Division Curriculum Reform and Development and Supplies and Logistics Divisions Secondary Education Division District and Regional Education Office efforts Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) census and survey information systems Population and Housing Census Household and labor surveys Conclusions and Recommendations General conclusions How well do Ghana's data systems support and inform the development and implementation of education sector policies, plans, and strategies? For strategic functions (development of policies, plans, and strategies) For operational functions (implementation) Special focus on EMIS How well do Ghana's data and information systems provide a basis for coordinating and aligning external assistance and development partners activities in support of education? iv Information for Education Policy, Planning,

5 6.4 How well do Ghana's data and information systems and capacities support and inform the development and implementation of USAID s five-year strategy? How well do Ghana's data and information systems produce data to report on progress in the education sector, including evaluating and reporting on the outcomes and impacts of USAID assistance? Sector-wide performance and performance standards Evaluation of classroom process Evaluation of student learning Evaluation of community engagement and accountability Summary of recommendations of the Data Capacity Assessment ATTACHMENTS Attachment 1: Terms of Reference (Scope of Work: Education Data Capacity Assessment Pilot Country Effort, Ghana, 01 April 31 July 2011) Attachment 2: Documents Consulted Attachment 3: Persons Contacted Attachment 4: List of Questions and Discussion Topics (Ghana Data Capacity Assessment: General Study Questions to Be Pursued Through Document Review, Interviews, and Data Set Review) Attachment 5: Sample Policy Cost Matrix Attachment 6: Sample ADEOP Forms District Expenditure Forms for Zonal Meeting Attachment 7: Sample MTEF Forms Attachment 8: Sample Completed MTEF for One District Attachment 9: Sample of Capitation Grant Expenditure Information Provided by Schools Attachment 10: Sample Monthly Expenditure Report for One Region Attachment 11: Sample School Report Card Attachment 12: Sample EMIS School Report Attachment 13: Sample DEO-Developed Form for Collecting School Data Information for Education Policy Planning, v

6 List of Tables Table 1. Ghana s Education Sector Plan: Policy objectives by thematic areas... 7 Table 2. Annual planning, budgeting, and monitoring cycle of activities (2010)... 9 Table 3. Education objectives and indicators...17 Table 4. Cost of meeting Aide Memoire and AESOP priorities, Table 5. Summary of study findings and analysis of the EMIS...49 Table 6. Table 7. Table 8. Table 9. Summary of study findings and analysis of the National Educational Assessment (NEA) system...54 Summary of study findings and analysis of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) data system...57 Summary of study findings and analysis of the ActiveX data system as used by GES for the Ministry of Education...59 Summary of study findings and analysis of the GES Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD)...63 Table 10. Summary of study findings on Ghana s National Population Census...70 Table 11. Summary of study findings on key household surveys conducted in Ghana (GLSS, GDHS, and MICS)...72 Table 12. Summary of recommendations of the Data Capacity Assessment...90 List of Figures Figure 1. Diagram of the framework for data capacity assessment... 2 Figure 2. Capitation grant enrollment figures from Greater Accra schools...35 vi Information for Education Policy, Planning,

7 Acknowledgments This work was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Education Data for Decision Making (EdData II) project, Task Order 11. The study was conducted and the report prepared by Jennifer Spratt, EdData II Technical Advisor, RTI International; Helen Perry, Consultant; Chris Cummiskey, EdData II Staff, RTI; and Amy Mulcahy-Dunn, EdData II Director, RTI. Any errors and omissions, which are inevitable in a paper of this type, are the responsibility of the authors. The assistance of the USAID/Ghana education team of Bob Davidson, Meredith Fox, Emmanuel Mensah-Ackman, Luis Tolley, and Marisol Perez is gratefully acknowledged. The thoughtfulness and patience of all Ghanaian and development partner key informants with whom we met are also much appreciated. Special thanks go to Emilia Aning, Director of the Ministry of Education s Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluation unit (MOE/PBME), for hosting our team; the UK Department for International Development (DFID) education team led by Rachel Hinton, which hosted a small joint meeting of development partners; Kwame Agyapong Apiadu Agyen (MOE/PBME Development Partner Coordinator), who provided immeasurable assistance in lining up key interviews with busy people, in addition to sharing his own knowledge and experience of the Education Sector Performance Review process; Godwin Addo, Ghana Education Service/National Examinations Coordinator; and Ernest Otoo, MOE/PBME, who accompanied us on visits to District Education Offices and schools. Information for Education Policy Planning, vii

8 Abbreviations ADEA ADEOP ADPR ADSR AESOP AF AG AREOP ARPR ARSR ASU AUDEM BECAS BECE BED BoG CAGD CBO CCT COTVET CRDD CREATE CSA CWIQ DACF DDG-AQ DEO DEOC DFID DG DMCS DP DWAP ED EdData II EDI EFA EMIS Association for Development of Education in Africa Annual District Education Operational Plan Annual District Performance Report Annual District Sector Review Annual Education Sector Operational Plan Administration and Finance Accountant General Annual Regional Education Operational Plan Annual Regional Performance Report Annual Regional Sector Review Assessment Services Unit Advisory Unit on Decentralized Education Management Basic Education Comprehensive Assessment System Basic Education Certificate Examination Basic Education Division Board of Governors Controller and Accountant General Department community-based organization conditional cash transfer Council for TVET Curriculum Research and Development Division Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions & Equity civil service agency Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire District Assembly Common Fund Deputy Director General for Access and Quality District Education Office District Education Oversight Committee Department for International Development, UK Director General Data Management and Communication Strengthening Development Partner District-Wide Assistance Project Examinations Division Education Data for Decision Making project EFA Development Index Education for All education management information system viii Information for Education Policy, Planning,

9 ERP ERRC ESAR ESP ESPR fcube FM FTI GAR GDA GDHS GDP GEA GEDP GER GES GET-Fund GIFMIS GIS GLSS GNAT GNI GoG GPC GPI GPRS GRATIS GSFP GSGDA GSS HDI HE HEI HIPC HIV/AIDS HND HQ HRMD HRPT ICT ID Economic Reform Program Education Reform Review Committee Education Sector Annual Review Education Strategic Plan Education Sector Performance Report free Compulsory Universal Basic Education Financial Management Fast Track Initiative gross admission rate Global Development Alliance Ghana Demographic and Health Survey gross domestic product Ghana Education Act Ghana Education Decentralization Project gross enrollment ratio Ghana Education Service Ghana Education Trust Fund Government Integrated Financial Management Information System geographical information system Ghana Living Standards Survey Ghana National Association of Teachers gross national income Government of Ghana Ghana Population Census Gender Parity Index Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Ghana Regional Appropriate Technology Industrial Service Ghana School Feeding Program Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda Ghana Statistical Service Human Development Index higher education Higher Education Institute heavily indebted poor country human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome Higher National Diploma headquarters human resources management and development Hard to Reach and Post Terrain information and communication technology identification; also Inspectorate Division Information for Education Policy Planning, ix

10 IMF IPA IPPD IQR ISE JHS JICA KG KNUST LAN LEAP LES MDA MDBS MDG MDRI MEO MESW MICS MLGRD MMDAs MOE MOESS MOFEP MoLG MP MTEF NAB NADA NALAP NAR NCCA NCTE NDC NDPC NEA NER NESAR NFE NGO NIB International Monetary Fund Innovations for Poverty Action Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database inter-quartile range Inclusive and Special Education junior high school Japan International Cooperation Agency kindergarten Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Local area network Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty less-endowed school Ministry Departments and Agencies multidonor budget support Millennium Development Goal Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative Municipal Education Office Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies Ministry of Education Ministry of Education, Science, and Sport Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning Ministry of Local Government Member of Parliament Medium-Term Expenditure Framework National Accreditation Board National Data Archive National Literacy Acceleration Programme net admission rate National Council for Curriculum and Assessment National Council for Tertiary Education National Democratic Congress National Development Planning Commission National Education Assessment net enrollment ratio National Education Sector Annual Review Non-Formal Education nongovernmental organization National Inspectorate Board x Information for Education Policy, Planning,

11 NTC NYEP OECD PA PBME PCE PE PER PESPR PMT PPS PRS PTE PTLMR PTR PTTR RECOUP REDATAM + SP REO SEA SED SHEP SHS SMC SPAM SPIP SQL SRC SRIMPR SSA SSSCE SWOT TCAI TED TIMSS TVED TVET UBC UBE UCC UIS National Teaching Council National Youth Employment Program Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Parent s association Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, and Evaluation (unit) per child recurrent expenditure personnel emolument Public Expenditure Review Preliminary Education Sector Performance Report Performance Monitoring Test Pilot Programmatic Scheme Poverty Reduction Strategies per teacher recurrent expenditure pupil to Teaching and Learning Materials Ratio pupil-teacher ratio pupil-to-trained-teacher ratio Research Consortium on Educational Outcome and Poverty REtrieval of DATa for Small Areas by Microcomputer Regional Education Office School Educational Assessment Secondary Education Division School Health Education Programme senior high school School Management Committee School Performance Assessment Meeting School Performance Improvement Plan Structured Query Language School Report Card Statistics, Research, Information Management, and Public Relations (unit) sub-saharan Africa Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats Teacher Community Assistant Initiative Teacher Education Division Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study Technical and Vocational Education Division technical and vocational education and training Universal Basic Completion Universal Basic Education University of Cape Coast UNESCO Institute for Statistics Information for Education Policy Planning, xi

12 UNDP UNESCO UNFPA UNICEF UPC USAID WAEC WASSCE WB WUSC United Nations Development Programme United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization United Nations Population Fund United Nations Children s Fund Universal Primary Completion United States Agency for International Development West African Examinations Council West African Senior School Certificate Examination World Bank World University Service of Canada xii Information for Education Policy, Planning,

13 Executive Summary This report presents the findings of a data capacity assessment funded under the United States Agency for International Development s (USAID s) Education Data for Decision Making project (EdData II). The Ghana assessment, joining parallel pilot studies carried out by EdData II teams in the Philippines and Mozambique, contributes to a larger effort to develop and stabilize a useful framework and methodology for future data capacity assessments in other countries. Given USAID s focus on basic education support going forward, the Ghana assessment placed special emphasis on basic education (i.e., kindergarten, primary school, and junior high school). Overview of study purpose, objectives, and methodology The purpose of the assessment was to evaluate the data needs of Ghana s education sector, and the capacity of existing data systems to produce the information necessary to develop education sector policy and plans, implement them, and evaluate their progress. An additional objective was to examine the extent to which data systems in Ghana can be used to monitor, evaluate and report on the performance and impact of USAID interventions in the education sector. An international team of four people carried out the study, using a combination of literature review, interviews with both users and producers of information, review of system documents and reports, and structured analysis of the material thus gathered. Specifically, the assessment team investigated, drew conclusions, and posed recommendations relating to: the strategic, operational, and accountability functions of the education sector, and how well existing data systems that supply information on basic and secondary education support these functions; strengths and weaknesses of existing data systems, including whether and how education actors and stakeholders actually make use of these systems and the information they contain; and areas for improvement in data and information coverage, accessibility, efficiency, and utilization. Principal study findings Strategic uses of data. The team found that well-documented, information-rich sector analysis supported the policy decisions of the 2008 Education Act and the elaboration of the ESP The annual review process is also efficient and evidence-based, focusing on a selected core set of key indicators. Annual and medium-term planning and budgeting at the national level rely heavily on data from the EMIS, joined by expenditures projections, current resource allocations, prioritized policy goals, and centrally derived budget ceilings driven by resource allocation formulae. Considerable Information for Education Policy, Planning, ES-1

14 and extensive effort is spent each year to collect, organize, and review information about the education system, culminating in the Education Sector Performance Report (ESPR) and the National Education Sector Annual Review (NESAR). Development partners collaborate closely and effectively with government on the review process. Weaknesses noted in the process included: limited analysis of disparities among districts, even though this topic is high priority for Ghana; limited analysis of relationships among access, quality, and cost; reliance on sometimes dated secondary sources, even when more current data were available for primary analysis; lack of cost-effectiveness analysis or tracking of funding and actual expenditures at the central level, including household and other non-government contributions; limited number of high-quality research studies carefully planned, commissioned, and overseen by the MOE; and absence of an efficient system for gathering, compiling, and tracking activities and contributions of development partners at local as well as national levels. Operational uses. Key data and information systems used for education sector operations and policy implementation include human resource management and financial management systems, the EMIS database, and a number of ad hoc systems. District and regional operational planning and budgeting are able to build on performance and expenditures data and information from previous years, following a process that parallels national-level planning, with annual reviews, projections, and budget preparation. An ActiveX-based system is the repository for resulting budgets, and serves as a basis for the following year s budget exercise. Data challenges found in the operations area included: General lack of confidence in the accuracy and timeliness of data in the EMIS school census and database for operational management purposes; Absence of a nationally standardized system for quickly producing robust beginningof-the-year enrollment and teacher numbers, despite clear demand for rapidly available, current data from a variety of users; Overlapping and highly duplicative information and data systems that is, central divisions that need data tend to descend upon districts in an uncoordinated manner, resulting in multiple data collections, reports, and inefficiency of effort; Lack of routine, systematic data verification processes for either EMIS data or other information collected from DEOs; Highly variable technical abilities and understanding of EMIS data usage among DEO staff, despite their critical role in operational management and the provision of information on schools; and ES-2 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

15 A surprising degree of paper-based and manual data transmission even by critical departments such as the GES Administration and Finance and Human Resources Management Divisions. Accountability. The assessment team explored the use of data and information for transparency and accountability among the various levels of the education sector and with the public being served. It also considered whether stakeholders perceived the information shared to be accurate and unbiased. At the district and school levels, a recently introduced School Report Card system shows promise as a tool for local education managers and the broader community on school process and performance. Accountability issues that the team noted included Problems with instrument quality and comparability over time of national and local assessments of student performance (NEA and SEA); Inconsistent use of assessment results for programming improvements; Near absence of detailed expenditure information tracked and made readily available at the national level; and Inconsistency across districts and schools regarding activities such as posting budgets and expenditures, using tracking charts to monitor and support teacher performance, and involving the community (School Management Committee, PTA) in education oversight. Review of available data and information systems. The assessment team also examined the features, overall performance, and potential areas for improvement of four key categories of information systems: EMIS, the sector's principal source of official statistics on pre-university educational institutions; the NEA and other student performance systems; Financial management and budget systems; and Human resource management systems. EMIS. The annually updated EMIS database provides comprehensive data and official statistics on schools for national-level reports and planning meetings. In principle, the EMIS should also be the primary source of operational management data for the system. As a key source of data and information for the sector, the reliability of the EMIS is of great importance. In recent years, important strides have been made to improve the utility of data reports and to decentralize a number of EMIS database management functions and increasing capacity of DEO statistics and planning staff to handle the data at their level. Nonetheless, the consistency, reliability, and accessibility of EMIS data and reporting are regularly called into question by central GES managers and development partners, leading to multiple parallel data collections. Development partners also lament the Information for Education Policy, Planning, ES-3

16 limited transparency and availability of disaggregated data in a form that would encourage secondary analysis. Standard EMIS reports present data and indicators in a number of different formats, but without providing in-depth trend analysis or readily accessible comparisons of differences in inputs or performance between regions or districts. EMIS reports present information in the form of pre-processed indicators only for the most part, often with little analysis of apparent anomalous information, and only partial presentation of the base data underlying some indicators. No standard data verification procedures are in place. Finally, funding to manage and maintain the system is erratic, despite annual preparation of a detailed budget. Often, development partners have been obliged to come to the rescue, in order to obtain the EMIS data. NEA and other performance measurement systems. Ghana has demonstrated its commitment to measuring student learning in a rigorous manner over time, through efforts for local and district performance monitoring and formative evaluation such as the Performance Monitoring Test (PMT) and the School Educational Assessment (SEA); periodic, sample-based country-wide assessments such as NEA; participation in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) program; and participation in the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). The NEA's limited sampling frame constrains the sector's ability to assess performance at subnational levels; sampling inconsistencies have also complicated appropriate weighting. There is unknown comparability of NEA test instruments over time, with testing carried out at different moments of the academic year, therefore limiting the validity of inferences made from observed trends. The NEA also suffers from significant time lags between data collection and dissemination. WAEC scores, particularly in their raw form, are not routinely available for external analysis, while annually normed scores do not permit trend analysis. Financial management and budgeting systems. The MOE and GES use financial data systems that, once fully operational and decentralized, should provide the education system with accurate, accessible data at all levels of decentralization. Current systems include a customized ActiveX-platform database system (used for annual budgeting and preparation of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework [MTEF]); and monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reporting, done manually, by every entity receiving public funds (for the accounting of expenditures). A new government-wide system, the Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System (GIFMIS), will combine budget and expenditures data into a single database, ultimately replacing ActiveX and the current manual expenditures tracking system, thereby allowing finance departments to track and compare expenditures against budgets. Across financial systems, a key problem noted in financial data collection and management was manual preparation of financial records, which causes duplication of effort and prevents use of automated functions within the existing electronic systems, opening the door to avoidable human calculation errors. In addition, budgeting and expenditure tracking processes are not formalized in a way that would ensure they are ES-4 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

17 systematic, consistent, and comprehensive. The Ghanaian government s commitment to transparency and the requirements of sound fiscal control and efficiency would both be served by more advanced and systematic computerization and the analytical power it affords. Human resource management systems. The government as a whole maintains an Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD), to which the GES links. The IPPD is used for managing information on every government employee officially working for the GES, including both trained and untrained teachers. No equivalent system exists for contract (nongovernment) teachers even though such teachers form a significant proportion of Ghana s basic and secondary education teaching force. Managing human resources information centrally introduces a host of problems, such as backlogs in the huge volumes of material to be entered (e.g., constant flow of information on new employees, transfers, promotions, leaves, and other status changes); the resulting delays in postings and salary payments; inconsistent monitoring and auditing of changes; and very long lead times to correct errors that are found. These challenges with the GES IPPD are compounded at the DEOs and REOs, where large volumes of human resources records for both government and nongovernment teachers are managed in a purely paper format, such that simply retrieving a specific file can be a challenge. Key conclusions and recommendations Ghana has a decades-long tradition of relevant data and information collection and substantial information transparency. The country exhibits a strong appreciation for data, information, research, and evaluation, and the sector has embraced evidence-based planning and decision-making. Nevertheless, the quality and efficiency of data collection and management are challenged by technical and practical issues, and a certain laissez-faire tendency that has resulted in duplicated efforts and underuse of existing data. The most telling evidence consists of large, inefficient, and uncoordinated paper-based systems; uneven training and equipment for networked data collection and use, both across the Districts and across central Ministry Agencies; and an EMIS that faces serious funding challenges and requires continued improvements in data collection, verification, reporting, and accessibility. The study's principal recommendations, summarized in the table below against key study questions, are tied to these basic issues and the specific areas for improvement identified. Information for Education Policy, Planning, ES-5

18 Summary of recommendations of the Ghana Data Capacity Assessment RECOMMENDATION FOR GOVERNMENT (with Development Partners as appropriate) Undertake more planful, commissioned research. Conduct more relational analysis of available data. Conduct in-depth analysis of disparities in resource distribution across districts. Carry out analysis of the effectiveness and the costeffectiveness analysis of programs and interventions. Study the flow and use of education funding. Promote use of existing data where adequate and appropriate. Continue capacity strengthening of DEOs as critical links for all information systems. Carry out HR records digitization in stages, piloting in a few districts. Pilot decentralized IPPD input centers. Create an all-staff education sector HR database directly updatable by districts. Ground School Feeding Program decisions in data. Establish a standard, start-ofschool-year snap census. Improve availability of information in useful forms. Provide greater transparency and accessibility of the EMIS database Continue to strengthen DEO and REO Statistics staff capacity. Developing & implementing education sector policies, plans, strategies Coordinating and aligning assistance to the sector Supporting USAID / Ghana s fiveyear sector strategy Evaluating & reporting sector progress ES-6 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

19 RECOMMENDATION FOR GOVERNMENT (with Development Partners as appropriate) Stabilize secure government funding for EMIS activities, while pursuing more cost-effective means of recuperating entered data. Streamline the EMIS school census. Improve data accuracy through strengthened data verification routines. District publication of the EMIS Basic School Report for local feedback and data verification. Strenuously pursue 100% coverage of schools in the EMIS database. Speed transmission of EMIS program updates and data. Establish an Education Intervention Coordination Dashboard. Developing & implementing education sector policies, plans, strategies Coordinating and aligning assistance to the sector Supporting USAID / Ghana s fiveyear sector strategy Evaluating & reporting sector progress Information for Education Policy, Planning, ES-7

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21 1. Purpose and Objectives of the Assessment Ghana s education sector has set high goals and objectives regarding educational access, equity, and quality, and their social and economic relevance. The context for these intentions includes a commitment to and expectations of transparent governance, and competing priorities for limited resources. Responsible leaders and actors in the sector need reliable and timely information to (1) make sound decisions, (2) carry out actions efficiently and effectively, and (3) build and maintain the support and trust of stakeholders and citizens. The present assessment examines the extent to which existing data and information management systems and capacities available to Ghana s education sector are fulfilling each of these three broad functions, in the pursuit of stated goals and objectives. This data capacity assessment of Ghana s education sector, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Education Data for Decision Making (EdData II) project, is intended to determine how well Ghana s data systems serve the following purposes: Informing and supporting the development and implementation of the country s education sector policies, plans, and strategies; Providing the basis for coordinating and aligning external assistance and development partners activities in support of the education sector; Underpinning the development of USAID s five-year country strategy; and Producing data to report on progress in the education sector, including evaluating and reporting on the outcomes and impacts of USAID assistance. The assessment process (see Terms of Reference, Attachment 1) was designed to identify strengths and shortcomings of existing data systems, in terms of both content and quality. The assessment team investigated how well the systems support the strategic, operational, and accountability functions, as well as whether and how actors and other stakeholders actually make use of these systems and the information they contain. In turn, the assessment identified areas for improvement in data and information coverage, accessibility, efficiency, and utilization; this report offers specific recommendations. The impetus for the assessment is fueled by USAID s objective to improve the relevance and evidence basis of USAID missions five-year country education strategies, as well as their alignment with host-country goals and priorities and their use of host-country systems, in keeping with the Paris Principles and the Accra Agenda for Action (OECD, 2005/2008; see Attachment 2 for a complete list of documents consulted). In the case of Ghana, given USAID s focus on basic education support going forward, the assessment placed special emphasis on basic education (i.e., kindergarten, primary school, and junior high school). Information for Education Policy, Planning, 1

22 The Ghana assessment, joining parallel pilot studies carried out by EdData II teams in the Philippines and Mozambique, also contributes to a larger effort to develop and stabilize a sound, effective framework and methodology for future data capacity assessments in other countries. 2. Approach and Methods Employed The starting point for the data capacity assessment of Ghana s education sector was the initial overall framework developed by the EdData II project. This framework simplified in Figure 1 examines five large action areas and three principal questions. Figure 1. Diagram of the framework for data capacity assessment Priority Setting Review and Reporting on Progress Which data are available? How good are they? Which data are actually used? Policy Formulation and Plan Development Management & Monitoring of Implementation Allocation and Alignment of Resources Source: RTI / EdData II (2011a), Data capacity assessment draft framework. The full framework (RTI / EdData II, 2011) offers broad justification and more detailed information on the overall approach. The adaptation and application of the framework in the Ghanaian context are described below. 2.1 Data collection and fieldwork Principal data collection methods that the assessment team employed in Ghana were (1) document review; (2) interviews with actors and stakeholders representing both users and producers; and (3) interviews with managers of data and information systems. 2 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

23 2.1.1 Document review The team reviewed relevant sector policy, planning, strategy and project documents to determine the types of data on which they relied and the extent to which specific data were referenced. They also examined forms and outputs from various data systems (data collection instruments, statistical reports, expenditure reports) and other documents (policy analyses, annual review documents, evaluation reports, special studies) to determine the type of data being made available and the ways in which it was being used. Documents consulted fell into the following categories: Government of Ghana (GoG) and Ministry of Education (MOE) strategic documents MOE and Ghana Education Service (GES) operational plans and performance reports MOE education management information system (EMIS) documentation and related information MOE information systems related to human resources management and development (HRMD) MOE-sponsored instruments and reports on student and school performance GoG and MOE financial management instruments and systems information Other data collection instruments developed by GES units, District Education Offices (DEOs), etc. Evaluations of the education sector and its information systems Census and survey instruments USAID documents Other development partners program and project descriptions. As noted above, a full list of documents consulted is provided in Attachment Interviews with principal users of education sector data and information The team interviewed a variety of consumers of education data and information that they use to carry out their strategic, operational, and accountability functions in the sector. These included education decision-makers, managers and technical staff of key ministry departments, GES central offices and departments, and a few decentralized structures (one Regional Education Office [REO], DEOs, and one school); USAID and other development partners active in the education sector; and independent civil society organizations involved in education sector research. These interviews explored actors experiences and observations with regard to (1) the sources, availability, and quality of data and information needed in education policy and planning, implementation, evaluation, and accountability; and (2) how data and information are used to inform these processes. A full list of information users contacted is provided in Attachment 3. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 3

24 2.1.3 Interviews with managers of data and information systems Team members also led interviews and work sessions with the producers of data and information, namely: technical officers responsible for managing key education data systems (EMIS, Financial Management [FM], Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database [IPPD], the West African Examinations Council [WAEC], and National Education Assessment [NEA]); DEO and REO staff charged with collecting and managing EMIS, human resources, School Report Cards (SRCs), and financial management data at district and regional levels; and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS). The purpose was to understand how data are maintained, what quality control measures are in place, how data analyses and reports are produced and disseminated, and how requests for information are addressed. Along with the information users, a full list of information producers contacted is provided in Attachment Guiding questions The broader framework also offers a series of illustrative questions on each area of action and on data quality and management. These questions, adapted to Ghana, guided both document review and interviews. The adapted lists of questions are provided in Attachment Analysis process The team analyzed the material gathered through the document review and interviews, categorizing not only by source and nature of the material, but also by the broad functions and specific domains being addressed, and by level(s) of application (national and/or decentralized). The broad functions by which the team organized the material are the following: 1. Strategic functions data and information for priority-setting, policy formulation, strategic planning and budgeting; allocation of resources and services; and the evaluation of impact. 2. Operational functions data and information for programming of activities; operational budgeting; distribution of resources and services; progress and performance monitoring. 3. Accountability functions data and information for communication toward stakeholders on the use of public resources and the effectiveness of policies and programs. 4 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

25 The domains of information explored included: Demand for education Financial management, including budget and expenditures Teacher management and development Teaching and learning curriculum and materials Student outcomes School and system management and performance. A series of working tables assisted in the analysis process. Separate tables addressed the relationship of the broad functions of the sector to the types of data and information within each domain required to carry out these functions, and the ways in which these data and information are used by sector actors; the content and processes of key data management and information systems of the sector; and the adequacy of these systems to provide the information needed. As intended, this process revealed gaps in data and information content and availability, reliability, timeliness, efficiency of production, and use. 2.3 Limitations The application of the data capacity assessment framework in Ghana, as elsewhere given a finite time frame and level of effort required that choices be made relative to the breadth and depth of study. It was not possible to conduct a comprehensive review of every data system and every piece of potentially relevant data, or to take into account the points of view of every actor with an interest in the education sector. Likewise, in-depth empirical tests of data reliability were not part of the scope of this study. Thus, data quality was not directly assessed, although team members noted inconsistencies and perceptions of quality problems where observed, and this report offers their recommendations for strengthening the quality of data going forward. Priority was given to those aspects of data availability and use which experience indicates are most critical to effective sector management, namely data on: resource allocations and funding formulae equity in the distribution of inputs analysis of learning achievement gender distinctions evidence of realistic goal setting sources of funding and programs, both government and external measures of implementation progress/success. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 5

26 Finally, as stated earlier, this data capacity assessment focused predominantly on the basic education subsector (kindergarten, primary and junior high school), in keeping with both Ghana s and USAID s emphasis on this subsector for development interventions going forward. 3. Ghana s Medium-Term Planning Context Ghana s education sector has seen phenomenal growth in access to education and gender equity of access since Independence. According to the EMIS, in , over 3 million children were enrolled in 14,000 public primary schools and over 700,000 in 5000 private schools, for a primary gross enrollment rate (GER) estimated at nearly 95%. Along with enrollments, primary completion rates have steadily improved. Junior high schools in held over 1 million children in nearly 8000 public schools, and over 200,000 children in nearly 3000 private schools. Gender parity was at 0.96 (i.e., the ratio of boys to girls was almost 1:1) in primary schools and 0.92 in junior high schools. Senior high school, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), and higher education access indicators have also improved at the national level. Kindergarten and preschool education have expanded substantially. Ghana s expenditures on education as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) are among the highest on the continent. At the same time, important challenges remain. Educational access and resource distribution have continued to lag in deprived districts despite targeted efforts. With student enrollment growth, the proportion of trained teachers in the system has declined. Student learning outcomes have not consistently improved, as measured by the National Education Assessment carried out in grades 3 and 6 in 2005, 2007, and 2009, as well as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)-Grade 8 results over time. Ghana s current Education Strategic Plan (ESP) and the rolling Annual Education Sector Operational Plans (AESOPs) seek to address these challenges. USAID and other development partners are committed to providing technical and funding support for the realization of these plans. The following sections present a brief overview of Ghana s current education sector goals and objectives; the sector s management structure; and the planning cycle and process, including the involvement of development partners. The last section (Section 3.4) discusses the development of USAID s country education strategy and medium-term planning for education support going forward, in light of the new agency-wide Education Strategy (USAID/EPTT 2011) and Evaluation Policy (USAID/BPPL, 2011), and the GoG s expressed goals. 3.1 Overview of Ghana s current education goals and objectives Ghana s ESP pursues eight broad policy objectives that support sociohumanistic, educational, and economic goals (see Table 1) defined and reflected in the 6 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

27 Ghana Education Act of 2008 (GEA, 2009) and the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA Vol. 1, 2010). Table 1. Ghana s Education Sector Plan: Policy objectives by thematic areas Goals Policy Objectives Improve equitable access to and participation in quality education at all levels. Bridge gender gap in access to education. A: Socio-humanistic (access, equity, welfare) Improve access to quality education for people with disabilities. Mainstream issues of population, family life, gender, health, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, conflicts, fire and road safety, civic responsibility, human rights, and environment into the curriculum at all levels. B: Educational (quality, skills development) C: Economic (efficiency, effectiveness) Improve quality of teaching and learning. Promote science and technical education at all levels. Strengthen links between tertiary education and industry. Improve management of education service delivery. Source: ESP It is on the basis of these broad objectives that the annual Education Sector Performance Report (ESPR) is organized, and the resulting Annual Operational Plans (AESOP, Annual Regional Education Operational Plans (AREOPs), Annual District Education Operational Plans (ADEOPs) and monitoring and evaluation plan are formulated. In principle, every intervention proposed in annual and medium-term plans and carried out in the sector is expected to contribute to the realization of one or more of these objectives. 3.2 Education management structure and the policy-planningmanagement-review cycle Management structures Ghana s schools and educational institutions are managed through the Ministry of Education, which comprises central administrative and technical departments including Planning, Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation (PBME) and Statistics, Research, Information Management, and Public Relations (SRIMPR), which bears primary responsibility for maintaining the EMIS database; 13 agencies, including the Ghana Education Service with its central Divisions; 10 REOs; and 170 DEOs and Municipal Education Offices (MEOs). Information for Education Policy, Planning, 7

28 All agencies and decentralized as well as national levels contribute to the policy-planning cycle, as do the sector s development partners. The GES has the mandate to ensure and coordinate implementation of all policy pertaining to basic education and senior high school education, and to develop all formal pre-tertiary educational curriculum and certification. The GES, overseen by a GES Council appointed by the Public Services Commission, is led by a Director General assisted by two Deputy Director Generals. One Deputy Director General is responsible for access and quality issues (Basic Education Division [BED], Secondary Education Division [SED], Teacher Education Division [TED], Curriculum Research and Development Division [CRDD], Technical and Vocational Education Division [TVED], Examinations Division [ED], and Inspectorate Division [ID]). The other Deputy Director General oversees GES management issues (administration and finance; HRMD; supplies and logistics) (interview with GES Deputy Director General for Access and Quality [DDG-AQ]). REOs and DEOs are the decentralized emanations of the GES throughout the country. These offices are charged with coordinating and monitoring activities and interventions in the districts, and compiling and transmitting reports (REOs); and with front-line education service delivery planning, budgeting, and implementation (DEOs). REO and DEO structures parallel the MEO-GES structure to some degree, with Planning and Statistics, Financial Management, Human Resources, and Supervision and Monitoring departments New standard-setting and advisory agencies The 2008 Education Act brought mandates to reorganize the GES, REO, and DEO structures, and to create three new agencies. Of the new agencies, the National Inspectorate Board (NIB) was the first to be established. The NIB has the mission to provide an independent external evaluation of the quality and standards of educational institutions, and the responsibility (a) to undertake the inspection of schools, (b) to evaluate, on a periodic basis, the first and second cycle institutions, and (c) to set and enforce standards to be observed at the basic and second cycle levels in both public and private educational institutions. (Education Act 2008 [Act 778], p. 6) The two other agencies to be created are the National Teaching Council (NTC) and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). The NTC is charged with advising on professional practice and ethical standards of teaching and teacher training, and with the registration of teachers meeting the standards established. The NCCA is primarily an advisory council on matters of curriculum, examinations, and assessment. These three new agencies constitute significant GoG initiatives to develop, maintain, and enforce standards of educational practice and performance. As such, if implemented as designed, in the coming years they will contribute in important ways to the production of 8 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

29 information relating to the quality of system performance and, in turn, to quality improvements The medium-term planning process Before the year 2000, the MOE/GES functioned with basic regulations and circulars, with little concerted attention to regular, systematic planning. In 2001 the sector began to develop strategic plans on a regular basis with broad participation. Between 2001 and 2003, structured education planning began to take shape with the introduction of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Framework (see National Development Planning Commission [NDPC], 2010a), and evolved further with the GSGDA (see NDPC, 2010b) and the sector s entry into the Fast Track Initiative. In 2006, Ghana s education sector began preparing AESOPs with attention to results-based management, and conducted district-level school-mapping exercises, with each district developing its own ADEOP (meeting/interview with GES DDG-AQ). The medium-term planning process follows guidelines set out for all sectors by the NDPC. The Commission has produced separate, detailed guidelines for national-level sectoral monitoring and evaluation (NDPC, 2009), national-level sectoral planning (NDPC, 2010c), district-level planning (NDPC 2010d), and district-level monitoring and evaluation (NDPC 2010e). The ESP goals and objectives of more equitable access to education, greater educational quality and attention to science and mathematics, information and communication technology (ICT), and inclusive education serve to orient the prioritization of interventions. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education for All (EFA) initiatives, in which Ghana participates, also provide guidance (meeting/interview with GES DDG-AQ). Three-year rolling plans are updated annually through the AESOP process, discussed in Section below. Table 2, presented in the Education Strategic Plan document, summarizes the annual planning, budgeting, and monitoring cycle, using the (then anticipated) 2010 exercise to illustrate. The specific steps are described in more detail in Section Table 2. Annual planning, budgeting, and monitoring cycle of activities (2010) Activity Dates (2010) Responsibility Receive 2009 education expenditure data April/May 2010 GES Receive EMIS 2009 data May 2010 EMIS Prepare ESPR May 2010 Conduct ESAR 2010 June/July 2010 PBME Information for Education Policy, Planning, 9

30 Activity Dates (2010) Responsibility Prepare Aide Memoire 2010 July 2010 Prepare AESOP August 2010 Prepare 2011 budget estimates and incorporate within the MTEF September 2010 Source: ESP , p. 49. In summary, the overall medium-term planning process is logically and thoughtfully structured, though with some inconsistencies in its application, particularly with regard to decentralized planning. The 2010 process was ultimately delayed by a few months from the planned dates above, due to funding availability delays that retarded the availability of the EMIS data. However, for 2011, this study team was in country at the moment of preparation of the ESPR , essentially on target with the above time frame. 3.3 Commitment to information-based performance management Ghana and its education sector benefit from a strong tradition of interest in and commitment to research and to information- and standards-based performance management and evaluation. For example, the Education Strategic Plan places strong emphasis on the importance of reliable information that is available to stakeholders and of objective, empirical evaluation of development interventions. Ghana has participated for years in both national and international surveys (Ghana Living Standards Survey [GLSS], Ghana Demographic and Health Survey [GDHS], and Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey [MICS], among others) and learning assessment programs (NEA for primary grades 3 and 6 see also Section 4.1.4; and TIMSS-Grade 8); is a member of the WAEC; carries out a regular population census cycle; and has a functioning, decentralized EMIS in the Ministry of Education. Ghana also possesses a talented and productive education research community, and development partners that are fully engaged to support the ministry and the GES in producing relevant, timely, and sound data, information, and analysis on the performance of the sector. These partners include USAID; the UK Department for International Development (DFID); the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF); the World Bank; the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA); the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA); the United Nations World Food Programme; and others. The development partner community in Ghana exhibits a refreshing mutual concern to coordinate efforts in full partnership with the ministry and the Ghana Education Service, as witnessed in the recent Coordination Workshop (MOE & USAID, 2011), National Education Sector Annual Review (NESAR) preparation, and regular development partner meetings and other forms of exchange, coordination, and information sharing. 10 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

31 Management and performance information relevant to the management and evaluation of pre-university education comes from eight principal sources: Ministry of Education EMIS, at SRIMPR and regional and district offices GES NEA (currently conducted every two years) and participation in TIMSS-Grade 8 (every 4 years) GES financial management system (currently transferring to the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System [GIFMIS]) GES Human Resources IPPD WAEC records Ghana Statistical Service population census and standard national and international surveys (GLSS, GDHS, MICS, and other surveys) Research studies commissioned by GoG and development partners and carried out by a variety of research teams, universities, firms, and networks such as ADEA; Associates for Change; Innovations for Poverty Action; Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions & Equity (CREATE) and RECOUP; and internal ministry efforts Periodic program and project reports as required by GoG and funding agencies. Annually, the Education Sector Performance Report (ESPR; prepared by the PBME unit in the Ministry of Education) serves as an important mechanism to organize, disseminate, and discuss sector performance in light of the current Education Strategic Plan s objectives and indicators. The Report makes use of many of the above sources. The engagement of development partners to support the generation and analysis of information is amply evident in the preparation of the ESPR, through funding of commissioned research studies, and through specific support to the development of information systems. This support includes: UNESCO and ADEA support to EMIS design and maintenance, and capacity development of SRIMPR/EMIS and regional and district statistics officers. USAID/Ghana s recently announced Data Management and Communication Strengthening (DMCS) activity to support the EMIS master plan, notably in the areas of equipment upgrading and wide-area networking, website development, digitized documentation center and human resources records, improved Internet accessibility in schools and decentralized offices, geographical information system (GIS) support, and concomitant capacity strengthening of appropriate MOE and GES staff and departments to lead and maintain these interventions. Support from multiple development partners, among them the U.S. Government (Department of Treasury), for installation of GIFMIS in GoG financial management departments including the Ministry of Education and GES. (Expected) Google collaboration on GIS capacity development. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 11

32 Significant contributions on the part of UNICEF, DFID, USAID, JICA and the World Bank to fund education sector research in Ghana in recent years; DFID-funded EdQual, CREATE, and RECOUP research consortia have been very active in Ghana. Innovations for Poverty Action in Ghana, which contributes both by demonstrating the implementation of rigorous longitudinal and randomized controlled trials in field settings, and by producing solid evidence-based information about the effectiveness of the educational interventions studied. IPA is currently conducting three studies in Ghana s education sector: (1) the Teacher Community Assistant Initiative (TCAI), which explores the effects of providing four different types of community support to primary schools on student learning; (2) a study to determine the long-term effects of scholarships for secondary school students, in which 60 students receive a scholarship and are tracked for 10 years; and (3) a study on the effectiveness of financial literacy instruction in primary and junior high school, being conducted with a Ghanaian nongovernmental organization (NGO) (meeting/interview with IPA). These high levels of engagement by multiple actors have contributed to a sector that is strong and getting stronger in the generation of data, information, and research. The adequacy, quality, and use of information, and the efficiency of collection, management, and dissemination processes, are explored in following chapters. 3.4 USAID s education strategy directions The new global USAID Education Strategy ( Opportunity Through Learning, USAID Education Policy Task Team, February 2011) presents a focused, results-oriented approach to USAID assistance in the education sector. By defining three well-delimited goals (Goal One: Improved reading skills for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015; Goal Two: Improved ability of tertiary and workforce development programs to generate workforce skills relevant to a country s development goals; and Goal Three: Increased equitable access to education in crisis and conflict environments for 15 million learners by 2015), and compelling USAID missions to work with countries to find the best fit between the country s development objectives and one or more of these goals, USAID aims to see greater and measurable impact with development funding and technical assistance. Over the past decade, USAID has supported a broad range of education-sector projects in Ghana. As stated on the USAID/Ghana website, The goal of the US Government Basic Education program is to ensure that at the end of primary school, children read with understanding and transition to junior high school. USAID activities include improving the quality of literacy instruction, supporting marginalized populations such as girls in school, strengthening management capacity, and building community capacity to contribute to student and teacher performance. (USAID/Ghana Program Overview Education, 2011) 12 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

33 Recent and current programs have included: support to a community teachers program in rural schools, scholarships for girls, teacher training and assessment support to the GES National Literacy Acceleration Programme (NALAP) for the use of national languages in reading instruction, financial and technical support to district education managers to promote accountability for results and to MOE to assist with initial decentralization efforts, and school-community accountability and management support through the school report card process and parent community advocacy with local government. USAID participates in Global Development Alliance (GDA) activities, with one activity contributing to the GES e-reading initiative in collaboration with Worldreader, to increase students access to books. Activities also support capacity building under UNICEF s Social Support for Vulnerable Populations program. Overall, the proportion of funds programmed through country systems has increased over time, reaching 70% in 2010, in an effort both to reach national scale with key interventions and to honor Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action principles (USAID/Ghana, 2011a). In 2010 and 2011, roughly half of USAID/Ghana projects that have touched the education sector have closed or will be closing, and most remaining programs are set to close in 2012 or In addition, Implementation Letters are being tested and used alongside more traditional funding modalities, to increasingly support, strengthen and work through host country systems, in keeping with USAID Forward guidance. This kind of modality increases the importance of data and evidence-driven programming, both at the design end and for the reporting of results, not to mention as an example of what lessons can be learned through this kind of funding (Communication with USAID / Ghana). Going forward, USAID s new global education strategy Opportunity Through Learning (USAID, 2011) and the Evaluation Policy (USAID, 2011) are requiring some important reorientations for sectoral assistance to Ghana as the mission looks to develop its fiveyear basic education country strategy beyond the 2013 horizon. In addition to sharpening the focus of education assistance activities, these documents place strong emphasis on aligning with host-country objectives, using reliable data and information to make programmatic decisions, making information available to stakeholders, and building USAID s and the sector s own learning through objective, empirical evaluation of development interventions. USAID/Ghana s education team has already taken important steps that prepare the ground for the required host country leadership, thematic focus, and information systems strengthening. Through active participation in the Education Sector Working Group (including chairing this group in FY 2010), USAID/Ghana has directly contributed to the Information for Education Policy, Planning, 13

34 MOE s Education Strategic Plan (ESP) and AESOP process, facilitating discussions among GoG, Ghanaian civil society, other U.S. Government actors (which include the Department of Defense, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department, and the Peace Corps), and other development partners to coordinate support for plan implementation. USAID-supported interventions in the sector are now evident in the ESP (USAID/Ghana, 2011a). USAID s Ghana Education Decentralization Project (GEDP) and Data Management and Communication Strengthening (DMCS) activities are providing over US$1.82 million to support the technological transformation MOEand its agencies and decentralized offices into a modern ministry. Through a cooperative agreement with World University Service of Canada (WUSC), GEDP includes support for decentralizing and operationalizing the three new autonomous bodies, and connecting all 10 REOs, and 15 DEOs in one REO on a pilot basis, to a managed network. The DMCS implementing letter complements parts of GEDP and focuses on Wide Area Networks, information technology support and related training for MOE/GES headquarters, development of new human resources and finance manuals and related training, website development, and digitization of information. DMCS also includes Internet connectivity for high schools through a GDA agreement with the telecommunications company MTN Ghana (communication with USAID). Anticipated outcomes of the two activities together include improved information flow and human resources information management assisted by improved technology. In addition, USAID is planning to provide further support to the MOE s EMIS. The importance of these activities is underscored by two current examples: the demands of the MOE s ambitious work to decentralize most EMIS capabilities to the district level, and those of realizing decentralization of teacher recruitment as indicated in the 2008 Education Act. Through provisions in the Act, teachers would become local employees of the recruiting district, a situation that would ostensibly require individual DEOs to have personnel payroll capabilities and databases that would be parallel to and communicating with the central IPPD system (meeting/interview with USAID/Ghana). USAID/Ghana is one of three missions selected to participate in an effort defined in Division H of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009: to develop and evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of a five-year basic education strategic plan. The main objective of this pilot country effort is to support the development, monitoring and implementation of five year strategic plans in three countries representing different points along the continuum of developing country contexts. The hypothesis is that concentrated emphasis on the support for the development and monitoring of the overall education plans for each country will result in lessons learned that may be applicable for USAID education funding in similar country contexts in the future. 14 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

35 The [FY09 Basic Education Report to Congress] noted that USAID would coordinate with the host country government and other in-country donor groups for concurrence on the proposed strategy and program approach, and that all decisions would be guided by baseline data appropriate to the country s level of need. Data collection and analysis, including a gender perspective, would ideally be carried out in each country under agreements reached among stakeholders and in accordance with the country s national education plan. The baseline data would be used to set priorities, benchmarks for measuring progress, and the foundation for measuring impact at the end of the five-year period. Gender equity issues impacting boys and girls as learners as well as men and women working in the education system would be taken into consideration during assessment, analysis, programming, and benchmarking progress. (USAID/EGAT/ED, 2011) The present data capacity assessment constitutes the second phase of implementation of this mandate. In keeping with this intent, subsequent chapters of this report (1) assess the ways in which data and information are used in the performance of key functions of the sector (Chapter 4); (2) describe and review the adequacy of existing data and information systems to inform these functions (Chapter 5); and (3) offer conclusions and recommendations for system strengthening in relation to the study's principal guiding questions (Chapter 6). 4. Findings on Data and Information Needs and Uses This section is organized into three broad subsections. They treat data and information needed and how they are used in Ghana, for strategic, operational, and accountability functions of basic and secondary education (i.e., senior high school) and for overall system management. For each function, relevant information categories are discussed, covering as appropriate, information on: access to schooling and equity of access; budgeting, finance, and financial management; teachers; teaching and learning curriculum and materials; school and system management and performance; and student outcomes. Chapter 5 follows up by examining in more depth the principal sources of data and information currently available, the quality of the data and information generated, and the processes by which they are collected, managed, and disseminated. Data access, content and quality gaps are identified. 4.1 Information for strategic functions: Needs, sources and challenges The principal strategic functions of the education sector are establishing educational policy, setting priorities, carrying out medium- and long-term planning and budgeting, capturing and coordinating funding, and evaluating programs. Carrying out these functions, of course, requires the analysis of many kinds of data and information. In Information for Education Policy, Planning, 15

36 Ghana, strategic functions engage the leadership of the ministry, as well as GES and other agencies, with PBME and SRIMPR/EMIS being the principal technical units charged with analyzing and consolidating data and information into coherent plans and performance reports at the national level Ghana's framing of strategic information for the education sector As stated in the 2010 Education Sector Performance Report, the preparation of the Education Strategic Plan brought together directives from the 2007 Education Reform, the 2008 Education Act, and current government education proposals. It also commissioned a number of specific studies and carried out SWOT analyses (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) of key themes. The draft plan was also the subject of regional and national critical review, received inputs from a broad range of stakeholders, and was formally appraised as part of its eligibility for continued participation in the Fast Track Initiative (ESPR 2010, pp ). In terms of overarching policy and cost projections, data used in the budget and planning process are extensive and drawn from fairly well-established data systems. Data for indicators for targeting development priorities are drawn from a variety of sources, and budgets drafted with cost inputs are drawn from the government financial accounting system. The financial framework for the ESP is an extensive sector analysis drawing from time series data back to 2002 and projected education costs to These are prepared with the use of the Education Financial Simulation Model of the PBME. The simulation model is extensively populated with data including: macroeconomic indicators anticipated education funding envelope sources of funding enrollment data personnel data projected expenditure data by subsector and program costed activities of the ESP. (ESP , pp ) Output from the model is given in more detail in Annex D of the ESP This annex includes three scenarios from the model for discussion among decision-makers. In summary, the construction of the Education Strategic Plan would appear to be soundly grounded in accord with national policy and international guidelines; extensive consultation; and substantial research and analysis. The ESP presents macroeconomic data, school data, and expenditure data that are tracked over time; and it includes indicators such as education expenditure as a percentage of GDP, education expenditure by level and source of funding, budget execution rate, and salary and nonsalary expenditure. 16 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

37 At the same time, certain standard macroeconomic and financial indicators which are typically present in sector analyses are not presented in the ESP For example, the ESP does not examine enrollment growth against budget growth, or the growth in teacher numbers against personnel budget over time. There is also some reliance on secondary sources of data and indicators in Ministry reports that could instead be produced and presented by Ministry report writers. Doing so would ensure that the most up-to-date data available were used, and would facilitate notes and caveats where necessary for example, the presentation of per capita education expenditures (ESPR 2010, p. 86). Turning to information for measuring and tracking progress toward ESP objectives, the sector s draft 2011 Education Sector Performance Report proposes a streamlined list of indicators relative to previous years' reports. Table 3 lists the basic and secondary education indicators against the objectives they reflect. Each indicator is presented in the report at the national level, with a five-year time trend. The indicators are also reported for the deprived districts (overall for 61 districts) for the 2010/11 year, taking advantage of new (2011) SRIMPR/EMIS reports that present district-level data. SRIMPR/EMIS is the source of all indicators for basic and secondary education, with the exception of the HIV Alert status indicator, which is provided through the School Health Education Programme (SHEP), a separate division of the GES. Table 3. Education objectives and indicators Objective Basic and Secondary Education Indicators Proposed for 2011 ESPR GOAL: SOCIO-HUMANISTIC Improve equitable access to and participation in quality education at all levels Bridge gender gap in access to education Improve access to quality education for people with disability Mainstream issues in the curriculum at all levels Kindergarten: net enrollment ratio (NER), gross enrollment ratio (GER) Primary: GER, gross admission rate (GAR), NER, net admission rate (NAR), completion rate, dropout rates by class, transition rate to junior high school. Junior high school: GER, GAR, NER, NAR, completion rate, dropout rates by class; transition to senior high school/technical and TVET Senior high school: GER, dropout rates, completion rate. TVET: GER, dropout rates, completion rate. For kindergarten, primary, and junior high school separately: Gender Parity Index (GPI) GAR, NER, NAR by gender Completion rate by gender Dropout rates by gender For senior high school and TVET separately: Gender Parity Index (GPI) Completion rate by gender Dropout rates by gender Number of special education students in mainstream schooling. % of schools with physically disabled children which possess ramps. % of schools with HIV/AIDS integrated into curriculum % of schools with HIV Alert status (information to be obtained from SHEP) Information for Education Policy, Planning, 17

38 Objective GOAL: EDUCATIONAL Improve quality of teaching and learning Promote science and technical education at all levels GOAL: ECONOMIC Strengthen links between tertiary education and industry Improve management of service delivery Basic and Secondary Education Indicators Proposed for 2011 ESPR Kindergarten, primary, junior and senior high school: % trained teachers Pupil-teacher ratios and pupil-to-trained-teacher ratios Pupil-classroom ratios Pupil-furniture ratio Promotion and repetition rates Pupil-core textbook ratio (primary, junior high, senior high) NEA results (primary) Basic Education Certificate Exam (BECE) pass rate regional (junior high) Frequency of in-service training received per school (senior high school) TVET: % trained teachers % teachers with technical qualification No indicators determined at the time of the field mission No indicators for basic or secondary education Unit cost per pupil by cycle Proportion of total education budget allocated to basic education Proportion of total education budget allocated to secondary ed % pupils in private education by primary/secondary Total public expenditure on education as % of GDP Total public expenditure on education as % of total government expenditure Personnel emoluments as % of total government education expenditure Source: MOE/PBME, informal communication The list displays an appropriate, judicious selection of indicators. At the same time, absent are indicators related to equitability of access, service delivery, or performance across districts, although the 2011 ESPR presents the situation of deprived districts overall. The indicators for Mainstream Issues are limited to HIV/AIDS considerations, whereas the objective is considerably broader than these Use of information in national medium-term and annual planning Ghana s annual planning and budgeting process makes extensive use of data in setting goals, in identifying activities needed to achieve these goals, and in allocating resources. Data, reports, and education sector plans (as documented in the AESOP) are used to inform meetings and budget deliberations. Overarching goals and guidelines are set at the central level. MOE agencies adapt these guidelines to meet the needs of their specific organization. GES then passes guidelines down to the district level where local needs, past expenditure data, and funding ceilings help district officials set their budget for the coming year. This planning process is explained in more detail in what follows. Preparation of the ESPR. The annual preparation of the Education Sector Performance Report, led by MOE/PBME, constitutes a key moment during which representatives from 18 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

39 across the sector marshal, analyze, and distill critical performance data and information to inform the planning process. The report is produced first in a preliminary form (PESPR), and used as a working document during the annual review (NESAR; see below), after which it is finalized (ESPR). The PESPR draws the majority of its data from the EMIS. 1 Additional data are drawn from external agencies such as Special Education, National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), Non-Formal Education, and SHEP. In an effort to improve the strategic depth and focus of the ESPR document, the 2011 ESPR introduces more time trends and focuses on fewer indicators (see Table 3 above for this streamlined list for basic and secondary education) than previous reports, selected by PBME with inputs of development partners. While data on individual regions or districts are not presented, the situation of deprived districts as a whole is featured. 2 Preparation of the ESPR involves a number of challenges, not least of which is the compilation of information from all agencies and development partners. PBME makes use of reporting templates and schedules; however, for various reasons, agencies may depart from the standard templates in their reporting and there are delays in the provision of reports. Development partners too, may have different calendars and reporting frameworks, and adaptations on both sides are required to produce the full ESPR document (meeting/interview with PBME/Development Partner Coordinator). Further discussion of the information, research, and analytical basis of the ESPR is provided in Section on system performance evaluation below. NESAR. Annual planning and budget deliberations begin with the National Education Sector Annual Review in June. The NESAR, organized by the ministry with development partners in the Education Sector Working Group, is a broad stakeholder conference and a pivotal meeting used to deliberate on the next year s education goals and activities. During the 2011 NESAR, participants worked in groups on the following themes: education finance; TVET, science, and ICT; management; access and equity; special needs education; nonformal education; and tertiary education. Each group examined the PESPR findings and information from participant presentations, and prepared action recommendations related to its theme. On the last day of the Review, participation was expanded to include representatives from among district chief executives. The thematic groups presented the results of their discussions and recommendations to the plenary, and key NESAR findings and recommendations were summarized for inclusion in the final ESPR. Aide Memoire. The Education Sector Working Group meets to review the key findings from the NESAR and to develop specific action items regarding the education budget. The list of action items and recommendations that the Education Sector Working Group develops is recorded in an Aide Memoire document that all Working Group members 1 The PESPR for 2011 drew data from the data sets. 2 Although regional disaggregation was considered for the 2011 round, it was thought that this disaggregation would make this already substantial report unwieldy. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 19

40 sign. This Aide Memoire is then taken into account in the preparation of the rolling AESOP (see below). AESOP and Medium-Term Expenditure Framework. Following the NESAR and development of the Aide Memoire, PBME organizes a Policy Review Meeting that is attended by representatives of all 13 agencies in the MOE. During the meeting, the priority areas for the coming year, as stated in the Aide Memoire, are highlighted. Agencies are invited to propose activities aligned with these priority areas, as well as the broader sector-wide policy framework and strategic plan (the ESP), in a three-year rolling AESOP. Activities are expected to be informed by research and experience. This three-year rolling AESOP was introduced in 2006 as part of a new focus on resultsbased management (meeting/interview with GES DDG-AQ). With the high-level Education Strategic Plan providing strategic orientation and ambitious long-term targets linked with MDG and EFA frameworks, the AESOP cycle provides an opportunity to reorient and sharpen priorities, and to relate priorities and activities more closely to evidence, current level of progress, and emerging issues. The specific activities proposed by each agency over the three-year period of the AESOP are then costed out to produce a draft medium-term expenditure projection, which must subsequently be reconciled with budget ceilings defined by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) (see below). Annual Policy Matrix. Ghana s longer term ESP , MTEF, and AESOP connect the priorities in the annual budget with the policies, activities, and indicators outlined in previous sections. During the above-mentioned Policy Review Meeting, meeting participants also develop an annual form of the AESOP referred to as the Policy Matrix. The Policy Matrix drops items from the three-year AESOP that have already been accomplished, and focuses attention on issues that have been highlighted by the Aide Memoire. The Policy Matrix, like the AESOP, may be considered a menu of actions. The 13 agencies select actions that address the issues that are of greatest concern to each individual agency. The agencies then cost out these activities; cost estimates are eventually folded into the Policy Matrix, which is then transformed into the Policy Cost Matrix. The agencies work internally to develop their version of the policy cost matrices (for more information on the decentralized aspects of this budgeting process, please see Section 4.2.2; a sample matrix appears in Attachment 5). Internal budget hearings and Bilateral Budget Meeting. Once the GES and other agencies of the MOE have prepared their Policy Cost Matrices, they present these to PBME during an internal budget meeting. Each agency uses input from these hearings to update its policy cost matrix. The PBME then compiles these matrices into one single Policy Cost Matrix. The MOFEP then invites the Ministry of Education and Agency heads to present the cost matrix at the Bilateral Budget Meeting. In a break with past 20 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

41 practice, in 2010 MOFEP specifically chose to no longer set budget ceilings prior to this meeting, so as not to impede agencies prioritization process. 3 After the meeting, MOFEP sets budget ceilings for the MOE. The overall ceiling is allocated to four main expenditure categories: personnel emoluments, administration, services, and investment. The MOFEP does not allocate funding across MOE agencies, nor does it allocate funding across the different education levels (primary, secondary, TVET, tertiary). Budget Committee Meeting. With the overall MOFEP-defined budget ceilings now established, and subsequent budget guidelines provided by MOFEP and NDPC, the PBME then organizes a meeting of the Budget Committee, which is made up of PBME, GES, and NCTE representatives. This committee determines the specific allocation of the MOFEP ceilings across the 13 agencies of the MOE. Agencies are then required to reprioritize their plans and budgets based on the ceilings established. PBME reviews the updated policy cost matrices and reconciles any numbers that differ from the budget ceilings. The MTEF data are published and are available, although they are not intended for use by laypersons. GES, by far the largest agency of the Ministry of Education, is then responsible for allocating its overall budget ceilings for the following budget categories: administration, services, and investment to REOs, DEOs, and schools, as well as by program (kindergarten, primary, junior high school, senior high school, TVET, and special education). Budget for personnel emoluments for all public-sector employees is centrally controlled. Projected costs. To illustrate the work required in reconciling available funding with the initial results of AESOP and MTEF estimations, Table 4 shows cost projections by subsector for resources needed to fund the current three-year program. These projections show an annual funding gap of over 800 million cedis, with basic education representing over half this gap (478 million cedis in 2011 alone). Table 4. Cost of meeting Aide Memoire and AESOP priorities, MOE request to MOFEP MOFEP Ceiling Sub-Sector Baseline AESOP Projection Basic , , , ,784.8 Secondary and TVET Inclusive and Special Education Non-Formal Education Note from the MOFEP budget guidelines: Please note that no ceilings will be provided in this guideline to allow for MDAs to focus on the process of determining their priorities and costing them efficiently. However, MDAs are expected to be guided by historical expenditure trends and the ability of the state to fund these programmes and the hard resource constraints that government has to deal with. (MOFEP, 2010, p. 3) Information for Education Policy, Planning, 21

42 Sub-Sector Baseline MOE request to MOFEP MOFEP Ceiling AESOP Projection Tertiary Management and Subvented TOTAL 1, , , ,936 2,991 3,075 Projected Resource Envelope 2,097 2,174 2,253 Total Finance Gap Basic Education Gap Source: AESOP In this table, figures are shown in millions of cedis. Amounts are not inflationadjusted for 2012, The 2011 management ceiling includes Ghana Education Trust Fund (GET-Fund) allocation. The exercise is a daunting one, but senior-level staff seem reconciled to it, given Ghana s already large proportion of both GDP and the national budget going to the education sector, relative to other countries. As stated by the Director of PBME, We do have limitations, but government is giving as many resources as possible to education so we have to marshal them. The situation has even led some PBME staff to question the usefulness of detailed AESOP templates at the national level, given that the budget finally obtained usually requires major reworking of these plans. The concern is legitimate; the PBME is likely to move to program-level monitoring and expenditures reporting only. At the same time, agencies and other operational units will need the operational detail. An ICT solution involving automated tables at different levels of aggregation may be appropriate, once reconciliation of aspirations and budget ceilings is stabilized each year. Sources of funding. The observed funding gap between national government funds and agencies planning aspirations can in principle also be reduced through mobilization of other sources of funding. The sources of funding generally considered in Ghana s AESOP and MTEF process for the education sector are: Government of Ghana Internally generated funds Ghana Education Trust Fund (GET-Fund), principally for management support and school construction Development partners. At the same time, households also make contributions that have generally gone unmeasured and are only sporadically acknowledged in MOE planning documents, but that are likely to be major as found through education accounts-type exercises in other countries (e.g., Nigeria, Morocco, El Salvador) and on the basis of survey evidence in Ghana. The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), administered through the Ministry of Local Government (MLG) rather than the MOE, also contributes importantly to improving conditions for learning. District Assemblies support education in substantial 22 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

43 ways, primarily through in-kind and service provision rather than direct funding. Members of Parliament also contribute through the MPs Fund. Other funding considerations. In addition to the funding allocation process and the identification of funding sources beyond central government, budget and planning are affected by other considerations. The first of these is that the first item of the budget, personnel emoluments for all public-sector employees, is centrally controlled and essentially nondiscretionary. It is also by far the largest element in the recurrent budget. Another issue raised by several department heads and observers is that, while they consider that they have the data, information, and other elements required to prepare sound budgets and plans, implementation problems arise not because of the quality or realism of the plans and budgets produced, but because of shortfalls in the availability and timeliness of funds to do the work planned Resource allocations, funding formulas, and deprived districts Full decentralization of the education sector is unlikely to occur without adequate resources to accompany broader responsibilities. In this light, the accuracy and effectiveness of resource allocation practices, to ensure more equitable availability of resources relative to need, become doubly important While the lion s share of the GES budget personnel emoluments remains centrally controlled as just indicated, other GES budget categories are managed in a decentralized fashion. Thus, GES carries out a process of budget allocation to REOs, DEOs, and schools. At the senior high school level, schools themselves receive direct funding from the national budget. The majority of basic schools administration, service and investment budget lines are managed by the DEO, with funds coming directly to schools only from the capitation grant (see Section 4.2.3), PTAs, and internally generated funds (meeting/interview with GES/Financial Controller). Resource allocations and funding formulas The GES Finance Department uses resource allocation formulas to set funding ceilings for services, administration, and investment for all districts. Districts then allocate resources to schools within their district. The allocation formulas, recalculated annually, are very data-intensive and rely on data from the EMIS. District-specific data used in the formulas include, for services and investments: % availability of textbooks, % untrained teachers, BECE exam results, % of girl enrollment, pupil-teacher ratio, gross enrollment rate, % of pupils with desks, Information for Education Policy, Planning, 23

44 % schools needing major repairs, % schools with potable water. For administration, the funding allocation formula includes number of circuits in the district, number of teachers, vehicles, office accommodation, rented premises, and other information (interview and follow-up communication with GES/Financial Controller). The resource allocation formulas are used to distribute the ceiling that has been given to the GES finance department from MOFEP through MOE. The GES finance department applies the formulas to determine the funding ceiling for each district, before hosting zonal meetings with district representatives. Districts then use their allotted MOE ceilings during the zonal meeting in preparing their MTEF budgets, which are expected to reflect prioritized activities from their respective ADEOPs. Other sources of funding (from district assemblies, NGOs, and others) may also be applied to support ADEOP priority activities (interview and follow-up communication with GES/Financial Controller). (See Section below for a detailed description of the ADEOP preparation process.) Deprived districts. The resource allocation formulas also incorporate deprivation criteria used to identify the most deprived of the 170 districts in Ghana. During the period , these deprived districts were entitled to supplementary funding through the Pilot Programmatic Scheme (PPS). An initial list of 40 deprived districts was soon increased to 61 districts, even though, as one GES department head observed, one should expect the number to decline if the program was having any positive effect. As noted in the text box at right, the challenges can be complex, with simple increases in resource allocations being unlikely, on their own, to reduce certain disparities. The challenge of attracting teachers to deprived and hard-to-reach areas. Problems arise with posting teachers to deprived and hard-to-reach areas. To address this challenge, a number of incentives have been proposed and a teacher-trainee sponsorship by districts has been implemented. Particularly for women, incentives such as transportation and accommodation were recommended by some interviewees, to encourage teachers to take postings in Northern regions. Previously, religious bodies that ran schools in these regions would provide teacher accommodation. Now, often there are not even toilet facilities. How do you expect teachers to conduct their work under these conditions? (meeting/interview with REO Greater Accra). A system of sponsored new teacher postings for deprived districts enables teacher training colleges to offer district-funded places to aspiring trainees. Up to 90% of places at teacher training colleges are offered to trainees sponsored by deprived districts. In return, sponsored trainees are posted to deprived districts, and must agree to work there for a minimum of three years. In 2011, the PPS will close and be evaluated, although overall resource allocation will continue to make use of the deprivation criteria. At the close of the PPS, all 170 districts will be re-ranked in order of deprivation, to determine whether district rankings have changed, and in particular, whether any of the 61 districts identified as deprived has improved its status on the deprivation criteria (interview and follow-up communication with GES/Financial Controller). 24 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

45 Disaggregated information reveals persisting disparities. Expenditures are reported in the annual ESPR in terms of percentage spent on various levels of the education system and in terms of per capita costs of each level. Data exist that permit presentation by region and district (see, for example, World Bank, 2010). With the exception of deprived districts as a whole, however, the annual reports have tended to shy away from publishing these data. The ESPR 2010 (p. 87), for example, mentions that the basic education sector received 47.2% of spending targeted at reducing poverty, predominantly through the Ghana School Feeding Programme and the capitation grant. However, the document becomes rather discursive at this point, rather than contributing to systematic monitoring of the effects of these poverty reduction efforts or their impact on schooling, let alone student learning. In a similar vein, reference is made throughout the ESP , ESPR 2010, and AESOP to deprived districts and deprived schools, and numerous strategies are targeted at improving access, equity, and outcomes of these areas. But despite the use of the resource allocation formula, deprived districts have continued to show poor resource levels and performance relative to the national average (World Bank, 2010, p. 91; Wereko and Dordunoo, 2010, p. 3). To the degree that data inaccuracies may be contributing to these persisting inequities, a system of reporting data back to the districts and schools for verification would help to increase the accuracy of the data used in the resource allocation calculations. Regular publication of per student expenditure levels by district and school level would also help to regulate the equity of resource allocations. Finally, the formula itself may need to be recalibrated; a detailed analysis of the working of the funding formula and experimenting with different formulas could help identify what was needed to ensure more equitable allocations. As stated in the World Bank s exhaustive report on equity, efficiency and accountability of education service delivery in Ghana (World Bank, 2010), Even with Ghana s extraordinary levels of spending on education, it is clear that public funds cannot cover all minimum needs. Under these conditions, allocations should be better prioritized and provisions adjusted to local conditions and need.... The government has been trying to direct more resources to deprived areas.... But current administrative structures have often left these efforts unsuccessful. In reality, the complexity of resource allocation has led in many cases not to neutral allocation, but to negative targeting, as poorer areas receive not more provisions but less. Therefore, decisions about prioritizing the allocation of resources and the setting up of services will be most effective when they follow some principles: Information for Education Policy, Planning, 25

46 a) they are evidence based, b) they promote policy goals by providing adequate incentives for key participants including students, parents, teachers, headteachers, and district officials, and c) they are targeted so that those who need the most get the largest share of public resources. (World Bank 2010, p. 91) System performance management and evaluation In the words of the Director of Basic Education in the GES, Ghana has a habit of wanting to be among the first, among the early adopters; we keep a positive attitude and have high expectations. For example, if the news is bad... that makes me happy: It shows us what we need to do. Politicians do not always agree with that perspective, but that is how I look at it. This appreciation for the constructive value of system performance evaluation, while perhaps not universal in the MOE and the GES, is clearly apparent in the sector, and relatively institutionalized. It is reflected in Ghana s National Education Assessment program, now in its fourth round; in Ghana s continued participation in TIMSS and other international surveys; in the creation of the National Inspectorate Board, the National Teaching Council, and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment; and in the focus on setting clear standards of performance for schools, teachers, curriculum, and learning assessment practices by these new entities. Information-based annual performance review is institutionalized in the planning cycle at all levels, from the school to the national level (see Section below). Student learning assessments and examinations. As noted previously (Section 3.3), Ghana has displayed commitment to rigorous, standardized assessment of students learning for decades, with the Performance Monitoring Test (PMT) through the 1990s, and the current National Education Assessment, applied every two years since The NEA uses a clustered representative national sample of children in primary grades 3 and 6, and permits an estimation of the number of children who meet minimum competency and proficiency levels in English and mathematics subjects. The test results can be analyzed at national and regional levels. Experts from the University of Montana initially worked with Ghanaian experts to develop the methodology; some of these Ghanaian experts are still involved in the analysis phase, along with some international technical assistance (meeting/interview with CRDD Director). In performance reviews and reports, the NEA results constitute the sole national-level source of indicators of primary school student learning available to the sector at present. 4 More about the PMT appears in Section on public accountability. 26 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

47 The School Educational Assessment (SEA) is intended to be carried out with students in primary grades 2 and 4 in all elementary schools every other year. This assessment, unlike the NEA, is proctored locally and its results are intended solely for local formative evaluation and performance review, although they attract considerable national-level interest despite their less-than-uniform quality control. This interest has evidently created some tension between the national and local levels, not to mention confusion about the real purpose of the SEA, with schools asked to report their SEA results on the current School Report Card form (see Sections and for more about the School Report Card). At the junior high school level, Ghana s participation in the TIMSS program has provided indicators of eighth-graders mathematics and sciences learning outcomes. This survey, conducted every four years, is used principally for international comparisons and as an important indicator of system performance in sector reviews. Annually, results on the Basic Education Certificate Examination and the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) maintained by the West African Examinations Council constitute the principal sources of information on junior and senior high school performance, respectively, as reflected in student learning. However, these results are currently provided for analytical purposes only in their already normalized form in any given year, such that invariably, 60% of all BECE takers nationally will obtain a pass into secondary school, for example. In other words, while useful for comparative purposes between genders, regions, and districts in a given year, the already normed indicators do not permit examination of overall improvement or change in achievement over time. The notion of a pass rate is itself misleading, as students who do not obtain entry into academic secondary school or university still have options to pursue technical or vocational education (meetings/interviews with GES DDG-AQ and SED). An individual or organization that makes a specific, successfully justified request to the WAEC may obtain raw scores for analytical purposes; however, the system does not use them in any routine way to assess trends in student performance. At the local level, in at least one DEO, it was stated that the examinations and training officers make use of SEA, NEA, and BECE results as a means to identify underperformming schools, and to plan interventions on this basis (meeting/interview with DEO West Akim/Training Officer). School performance standards and evaluation. In addition to measures of student learning, the educational system evaluates school-level performance through a process of inspection or evaluation. While annual inspection principally serves a management function, the NIB, the external agency defined in the 2008 Education Act and newly Information for Education Policy, Planning, 27

48 established by the MOE, may be said to play a more strategic role. 5 The NIB is charged with establishing performance standards and has a research and evaluation function, as well as conducting inspections of schools on a less-frequent basis for quality-control purposes. The NIB reports to Parliament through the Ministry of Education. The NIB Chief views the NIB as a potential catalyst for decision-makers, engaging them to take a closer look at information about system performance and what it can tell them. In his own words, The NIB will carry a stick, but will also be able to offer advice and draw high-level attention to areas of need. The NIB has commissioned Cape Coast University s Institute for Education and Pedagogy to propose a set of Quality Indicators for Evaluating School Performance of Pre-Tertiary Education. Once this document is finalized, inspection instruments will be developed and training of inspectors will be carried out, followed by a trial in 180 deprived schools and 20 other schools. Full rollout is anticipated for the school year. Taking into consideration what is available through the EMIS, the NIB also intends to establish an independent research and data department, and develop its own database (meeting/interview with NIB Chief). Other studies to inform system performance evaluation. As noted in Chapter 2, Ghana has a well-established and active education research community and skilled methodologists in universities, the Ghana Statistical Service, private sector organizations, and NGOs. At the same time, both senior ministry and GES officials and development partners expressed a concern that research efforts lack adequate coordination, quality control, or clear orientation. In the words of a senior GES Director, the Ghanaian educational system is highly organized, but very challenged in terms of linking resources to outputs and outcomes. The ministry, for example, does not possess a current policy research agenda; rather, research ideas tend to be proposed, funded, and carried out on an ad hoc basis. Studies conducted and ideas for topics worthy of study abound. PBME and other ministry offices have conducted in-house studies, although the relative advantages of commissioned versus in-house research are a familiar topic of discussion within the ministry and with development partners. Use of statistical indicators and data systems (EMIS, IPPD) in preparation of the ESPR. As noted in a previous section, the education sector planning cycle incorporates performance analysis and reporting as a critical step. As we have seen, the Education Sector Performance Report makes abundant use of EMIS data in the estimation of the year s situation relative to M&E system indicators. Over time, the sector has been able to streamline and improve the annual centralization of key information for this report, a process that requires compilation not only of EMIS data, but also of information 5 The NIB Chief was concerned to make clear that the NIB in no way replaces the management inspection coordination ensured by the Inspectorate Division of the GES, to which district and circuit supervisors will remain directly linked. These supervisors will, however, benefit from guidelines provided by NIB, as well as from access to NIB-produced reports. 28 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

49 contained in GES and other agencies quarterly and annual reports, as well as information from the divisions of Non-Formal Education and Special Needs Education, the NCTE, and development partners. EMIS in particular has been responsive in this regard, providing Excel-based tables of indicators to PBME for the preparation of the ESPR and the NESAR. Special education and nonformal education stand out as subsectors offering little in terms of systematic data collection or reporting. Appropriate and useful analysis of data collected is equally important. The 2011 ESPR includes an examination of trends on some indicators, for example. This kind of presentation highlights progress over time and the rate of change. Further systematic analysis at disaggregated levels, however, is lacking. Some aspects of the EMIS have seen considerable improvement with the support of UNESCO and now ADEA technical assistance, and with funding support from USAID, DFID, and loans to government. Data entry was decentralized to the DEOs in 2008, with some other data management functions also gradually being decentralized. A routine facilitating data exportation to Excel was incorporated, for use by national and DEO statistics staff. There has been a positive evolution in automated reporting, with the addition of district-level reports (updated in to include all 170 districts), and the Basic School Report. Decentralization of the database system to DEOs is also expected to help improve data quality over time, as district statistics staff gain mastery of the system and are well-placed to identify data anomalies and other markers of data quality issues. There is still work to be done, however, to improve the use of information for strategic purposes. Quality, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of the EMIS data continue to be of concern for sector actors and development partners; informal comparative analyses with other data sources and of year-on-year enrollment figures suggest that quality concerns are well-founded. There exists an M&E framework and plan, although some consider that this framework would be more useful if it had more realistic targets (meeting/interview with GES DDG-AQ) and included more process indicators that might help to explain failure to meet targets. In addition, the Ministry does not have an M&E dashboard or database to keep track of this important information in a systematic, comprehensive way (meeting/interview with PBME Director). 4.2 Information for operational functions To investigate the use of data and information for operational functions, the assessment team looked at how districts manage national-level needs for information from schools, and how they use information themselves for teacher deployment and other personnelrelated issues; decentralized annual planning and budgeting; financial management; distribution of teaching and learning materials; and school management District management of national-level requests for data and information Managers in the GES at all levels are acutely aware that they need data to manage operational functions, and they collect it from a number of different sources especially Information for Education Policy, Planning, 29

50 from schools, via the DEOs. They also appreciate timely and accurate data. Many of those interviewed felt that data more than a few months old was likely to have lost its relevancy, an opinion that may be accurate for some types of data but not all. Few knew much about the processes and costs of collecting data, or how insufficient resources to do the job properly can affect accuracy. Staff in nearly all GES operational divisions interviewed questioned the relevance, accuracy, and efficacy of data collected by other divisions (including EMIS, despite system improvements noted above) for their management purposes. As a result, a number of GES divisions make independent data requests to DEOs, often requiring them to recollect the same school- or teacher-level data that have already been collected for another division. The duplication in data collection is enormous. For example, detailed data on individual teachers is collected no fewer than four times in the year. Up to date learner numbers are collected approximately seven times per year by different divisions and sometimes twice or three times by the same division. Learning and teaching material data are collected at least three times per year. In many instances, the functional departments require the same data in different formats, and they require schools and DEOs to manually fill in separate forms for each. A most succinct comment on this was made by a respondent in the GES Basic Education Division: There is a problem of templates [for collecting data]. GES gives report templates, Parliament gives report templates, EMIS also. Each division is individually making its requests for information of the DEOs. So Districts get confused between formats. A school staff member made a similar revealing comment: We are sending data to MOE/GES all the time: Financial and Administrative, Statistics, and Human Resources are always asking for the same information in different forms, and each office doubts the accuracy of the information collected by another office. The Statistics and Planning units in the DEOs interviewed also identified this problem. Barraged by the various data requests, both units visited had set up their own databases, which may have reduced the need to collect new information from individual schools each time they received a request. The following is a partial list of data that the DEOs actually collect from the schools for operational purposes, as requested by various units and divisions: Human resources: detailed individual teacher data for post provisioning needs (beginning of the school year) and the nominal teacher roll (in May and October) Supplies and logistics: student numbers by grade and subject, teacher numbers, textbooks, student support materials, and teaching materials available, in order to calculate learning support materials needed (collected three times during the year). 30 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

51 Curriculum: student numbers by grade and subject, detailed information on teacher qualifications and training. EMIS: student numbers by grade, gender, age, etc.; number of vulnerable children; detailed individual teacher data; textbook numbers; learner support materials; teaching materials; classroom construction details; absenteeism. School report card: student numbers, teacher details, absenteeism, and test results. School feeding: number of vulnerable children eligible for school feeding; number of children enrolled in the feeding program. School uniforms and shoes: number of vulnerable children in need of uniforms and shoes, number of children receiving uniforms and shoes. GES finance department: student numbers for the calculation of capitation grants (see below). In a similar vein, and despite the database efforts of some DEOs, data often are neither captured electronically nor stored in a centralized location (either by the DEO or the functional division). This means they cannot be easily updated thereby further justifying the need to collect data again later in the year Decentralized planning and budgeting Decentralization of education management and service delivery is a central tenet of the 2008 Education Act. As stated in the Education Strategic Plan , One of the guiding principles of the ESP (see Chapter 3, page 22) is that education planning, provision, management and delivery should be devolved to local government and institutions as far as is reasonable and effective. Hitherto, basic and second-cycle education has largely been centrally managed with most decisions under the direct control of the Ministry of Education and implemented through the Ghana Education Service (GES) under the GES Act. However, during the period of the ESP and for the foreseeable future, education decision making and implementation will increasingly become the responsibility of local government (District Assemblies) and to some extent the institutions themselves, especially schools, with local community oversight through School Management Committees (SMC) in basic education and Boards of Governors (BoG) in the second cycle. (ESP , p. 33) The annual preparation of district and regional educational operational plans constitutes an important moment for districts and regions to exercise their authority as decentralized structures. This process, described below, parallels the national-level strategic planning process described in Section 4.1.2, and like that work, relies on system performance and expenditure data to determine and justify future activities and budget. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 31

52 Preparation of the ADEOP by each district assembly. The increased decentralization of the GES is highlighted during the ADEOP process. Like the AESOP, the ADEOP was introduced in 2006, accompanied by a school-mapping exercise. Once the national-level Policy Matrix has been prepared (see Section 4.1.2), the GES sends districts the MOFEP budget guidelines, GES budget ceilings (broken down by the four main expenditure categories), the policy matrix, and a listing of benchmark activities which the districts must undertake. Interviews with DEO and REO staff indicated that while a bottom-up planning process is recommended in official documents, in fact district and regional operational plans typically are developed subsequent to the AESOP for the same time period, and based on it. This phenomenon would also help to explain the similarities across ADEOPs noted in the Document Review on Annual District Education Operational Plan and Annual District Performance Report (GES/BED/AUDEM, 2011). District assemblies then meet to select activities from the GES Policy Matrix that address the districts most pressing needs and goals. The district takes into consideration previous years district budgets, expenditures, and MTEF for the district as well as the budget ceilings set by the GES finance department using the resource allocation formulas mentioned above, to help develop the district s ADEOP. This document will guide their actions and expenditures for the coming year. The prioritization of ADEOP activities can be a multistage process. One DEO financial manager described the process in this way: The DA budget often comes with directives (earmarks), after which we can prioritize. Since we are members of various international conventions, these items have to be prioritized. So, prioritization takes into consideration the following factors: first, GoG priority/benchmark activities; (2) district assembly priority activities; (3) known investments (many of which may also be benchmarks); and (4) NGO special funds. (meeting/interview with DEO Dangme West/Administration and Finance). With regard to benchmark activities, as explained by one DEO director, the national budget and plan present obligatory priority activities that all DEOs must carry out, plus other indicative activities from among which DEOs can choose according to specific needs of the DEO. For example while school health education activities are obligatory, a given DEO might select also to pursue head teacher capacity development (meeting/interview with DEO Dangme West/Director). For another example, the GES might require districts to include in-service training activities, although each district would have the latitude to determine what specific training is needed and when it needs to take place. A technical staffer from another DEO focused on other aspects of the prioritization process, explaining that prioritization of specific activities was carried out by vote and on the basis on the level of the district s indicators, with areas showing weaker 32 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

53 performance given more attention. In this same district, the role of the circuits was also mentioned, with circuits preparing their inputs and needs (both material and relating to quality, such as teacher orientations and training, team teaching, school and student performance measurement). Unfinished business from the previous year may also be rolled into the following year s plan (meeting/interview with DEO West Akim/Director and team). At the regional level, the AREOP is then developed, incorporating all activities and costs for the REO office, and a summary of each DEO s ADEOP. According to a senior official in the GES, the advent of the ADEOP helped to engage districts in using EMIS data to establish their own district-level situation and planning targets and to juxtapose them with national targets, whereas before this the EMIS exercise was largely viewed by districts as a system solely for reporting upward (meeting/interview with GES DDG-AQ). As at the national level, district and regional planning cycles also include the preparation of annual performance reports (ADPR and ARPR) and the holding of sector review meetings (ADSR and ARSR). Typically, statistics and planning units within the DEO and REO offices are charged with preparing these reports and organizing the review sessions, sometimes with central GES and development partner assistance. Even schools are expected to carry out an information-based annual School Performance Assessment Meeting (SPAM), and to prepare a School Performance Improvement Plan (SPIP), covering the use of the capitation grant. The need to develop the capacity of DEO and REO financial officers and statistical and planning staff was raised by several actors, given that they are expected to carry out useful, informative analyses for the performance review process and reports. As stated by the Administration and Finance officer of DEO Dangme West, We need to design training for the next generation of financial officers. They need more analytical and management training. Training of the entire team is needed. People with a first degree and with some specialized training should be able to do the work. Experience is as important as the certificate. Learning is dynamic: The job is the first place where systems are adapted, and are constantly changing. Zonal meetings. The finance department of the GES organizes a series of four zonal meetings with representatives from every district. District representatives are asked to bring their completed ADEOP forms to the meetings. In addition, districts are asked to complete forms providing information on: current and anticipated teacher and other staff roles; salary requirements; Information for Education Policy, Planning, 33

54 headmaster, head teacher, and assistant head teacher allowance requirements; and vehicles and required vehicle allowances. Information on these forms is completed down to the school level (see form 1 in Attachment 6. During the zonal meetings, the district representatives use these completed forms, the ADEOP, budget guidelines, and budget ceilings to complete district-level MTEF forms (see forms 2 4 in Attachment 7 for examples of these forms). The district representatives must fill in an MTEF form for each chosen activity indicating, among other things, the objective, output, input, cost, activity, and funding source. Each listed activity corresponds to an activity listed in the district s ADEOP. By adding in cost and funding source information, the districts are providing the information needed to populate both the Policy Cost Matrix and the MTEF (see Attachment 8 for an example of the completed MTEF for one district). Once completed, the information from the MTEF forms is entered by GES finance staff into the ActiveX database (used for annual budgeting). Despite the Policy Cost Matrix templates, districts evidently may prepare their budgets using different formats, thereby complicating compilation by GES Finance; also, estimates can be off-target. All GES budget officers are brought together annually to finalize their budgets, but even then there may be cuts afterward. The resulting data, once reviewed and finalized by the PBME, are published in the MTEF documents, which are publicly available Financial management The operational functions of most concern for financial management of basic and secondary education involve (1) central-to-local allocations, which take place primarily via capitation grants and fee allotments; and (2) tracking of expenditures throughout the system. Capitation grants (basic education) and absorbed fees allotments (senior high schools) Capitation grants were introduced as a way to help basic schools (preschool through junior secondary schools) compensate for the fact that because of the changes in the education law in 2008, they could no longer collect fees from students. The capitation funding is used to cover minor expenses such as sports equipment, workshop and meeting costs, special events, and travel expenses. The capitation grants are, as one would assume, based on enrollment levels at each school. GES/Administration and Finance (AF) collects enrollment figures for capitation grant amount determination each year between November and February. Data are collected at the school level by circuit supervisors who then submit these numbers to the district offices, which collate the data and submit them to the regional office. (see Figure 2 for an example of district-level capitation enrollment data.) The REO compiles and sends the data on to the national office. As previously mentioned, school-level data are collected by 34 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

55 Figure 2. Capitation grant enrollment figures from Greater Accra schools district, regional, and national entities, and the data may be entered by hand or electronically at each level. Typically, schools write out data by hand, whereas at the district level and above, data may be entered into a spreadsheet. Regardless, data are passed on from one level to the next in paper form rather than electronically and therefore must be reentered at each level of aggregation. Capitation grant enrollment data are available at the national level broken down by region, district, school, and student gender. Resulting funding levels are available by region and district. The GES finance department does not use EMIS data in the capitation grant calculation, due to concerns about the reliability and completeness of the EMIS data. In fact, neither system s accuracy or reliability has been empirically established or regularly tested. While cross-checking of information between EMIS and GES/AF is Information for Education Policy, Planning, 35

56 occasionally carried out, it is not systematic. This double collection of school enrollment data in the same time period represents a considerable expenditure of effort and resources. The capitation grant gives each school 1.5 cedis per student per term, or a total of 4.5 cedis per student per year. Per student funding is the same regardless of students school level. Funding is provided during the first, second, and third school terms. The GES finance department determines capitation funding levels at the beginning of the year based on a 5 6% increase over the previous year s enrollment figures. Midyear enrollment figures (as previously stated, collected between November and February) are used to adjust the projected capitation amounts either up or down for the second school term, depending on schools actual enrollment levels relative to projected enrollment figures. The payment for the third term is simply equal to the number of actually enrolled students times 1.5 cedis. At the national level, the finance department calculates capitation grant funding for each district. Districts are then responsible for disbursing funding to their schools. Schools must provide monthly reports to the districts explaining how they have used the capitation funding. This information goes to the district and regional offices and ultimately to the national level (see Attachment 9 for an example of capitation grant expenditure information provided by schools). As with the capitation grant enrollment data, those submitting the information are required to sign the reports attesting to its accuracy. The GES SED gathers equivalent information from senior high schools for the distribution of the absorbed fees to these schools. In the case of senior secondary education, absorbed fees allotments are distributed directly to schools from the national level, therefore SED requires this information by school rather than by district only. Expenditures tracking Expenditure data provided by schools, DEOs, REOs, and MOE divisions and agencies are used to track the expenditure of government funds and to help estimate funding requirements for the following year. Expenditure data are collected and compiled at district, then regional, and then national levels on a monthly basis. The General Accounts department within the GES compiles the regional monthly expenditure figures into quarterly reports, which the finance department then reviews. Data are broken down by main expenditure categories (1. Personnel Emoluments, 2. Administration, 3. Services, 4. Capital Investment); by service level (Headquarters Services (141), Regional Services (142), and Handicapped Services (143); and by school level (primary, secondary, teacher education, TVET, etc.). See Attachment 10 for an example of a regional expenditure data report submitted to the GES. These regional data were submitted in paper form and then were entered manually. As with the enrollment data for the capitation grants, districts may enter the data by hand or electronically, and then send them to the next level of aggregation by , fax, post, 36 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

57 or courier. At the national level, General Accounts compiles all the regional-level data by hand using a calculator and large, handwritten tables, as computers are not currently available to staff responsible for this important task. Although data that regional offices deliver to the central General Accounts office are broken down by district, once compiled nationally by General Accounts, they are presented only at national and regional levels Teacher deployment, management, and capacity development According to the ESP , the most critical operational functions involving the teacher corps are: reducing disparities in pupil-teacher ratios, limiting the number of untrained teachers and head teachers (whether through training or dismissal), carrying out performance reviews of teachers, reducing teacher absenteeism, increasing teachers time on task, and increasing the number of teachers in hard to reach areas. In short, improving the quality of teaching and learning and the efficiency of education will require better management of teacher supply and deployment, management, and career development. Interviews conducted with human resources staff in both the GES and the DEOs indicated that current information systems are not adequate to meet these tasks. In fact, detailed teacher data are collected several times per year to the point of severe duplication but are not systematically stored or used. Currently, data for human resource management purposes are drawn from (1) the Integrated Personnel Payroll Database; (2) the EMIS; and (3) separate collection efforts by the DEOs at the beginning of the year for post provisioning, twice during the year for the nominal roll (which covers detailed data on all teachers in the district and their characteristics), and in an ad hoc manner for a variety of issues that other divisions raise. Despite such frequent data collection, the lack of a uniform information technology system or Wide Area Network makes it difficult for GES Human Resource Management Division staff to access information that they may need for deploying, monitoring, and managing teachers. The GES Human Resource Management Division has access to some reports from the GES IPPD database (described more fully in Chapter 5), although this database only contains information on government employees. Given these limitations of the IPPD, DEOs collect detailed data on teachers from schools using their own forms (three times a year), the EMIS census form, and other, ad hoc data collections. EMIS data are used for broadly tracking and monitoring teacher qualifications and deployment at the national level. Actual allocation of teachers to vacant school posts and promotions are based on other data that DEOs collect and the GES Human Resources Management Division approves concerning schools motivations for new posts. The districts identify empty posts using information that the schools forward to them at the beginning of each school year. DEOs own data are also generally preferred to EMIS data, for local planning of teacher inspections and organization of in-service training activities. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 37

58 DEOs are collecting teacher information three times a year by way of the postprovisioning audit at the beginning of the year as well as by the nominal roll. Collecting detailed teacher information again in the EMIS appears to be superfluous and costly, and furthermore it does not enhance the data actually available for managing teachers. Apart from the EMIS data entry system, DEOs have no standard information technology systems to collect and store data that they collect on teachers. Districts rely on their own technical staff to develop data sets to capture teacher data and information. No Wide Area Networks exist for transmitting data from the DEOs to the GES Human Resources Management Division. (In fact, the GES human resources division itself has only limited networking and access to .) Teaching and learning curriculum and materials Among the many units involved in this function, the Supplies and Logistics division bears primary responsibility for ordering and delivering teaching and learning materials to schools. For this reason, it collects information on number of learners and materials shortages from schools (via the DEOs) three times per year. The first batch of data is intended to help assess the materials needed by schools. The next two rounds are used to assess (1) whether a school may be eligible for more supplies and (2) trends in learner numbers at an individual school so that the division can project the amount of materials likely to be needed the following year. The Curriculum Research and Development Division receives funding directly from donors as well as generating funds itself that it uses for distributing some learning materials. It relies on EMIS data, which includes detailed information on teaching and learning materials available in schools, for calculating materials needed. The division typically determines the next year s needs by increasing the current year s materials by 5%, although it may also revise estimates of materials needed in consultation with DEOs if schools report discrepancies in the EMIS data. In short, the EMIS data collection provides the same information as that collected by Supplies and Logistics from schools three times per year School management School-level operational functions are taking on greater importance because of the context of increasing decentralization in Ghana, and schools data needs are expected to increase accordingly. For example, schools will need a variety of management-related data for decision making, monitoring, and accountability. As previously described in Section 4.1, from points made in the ESP , responsibility for basic education decision making and implementation accompanied by funding from capitation grants is expected to move to local governments and to schools themselves, with oversight by School Management Committees and Boards of Governors. 38 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

59 Oversight of school management currently falls to the DEOs and to the GES Basic Education Division. BED looks for information about adequacy of number of teachers, their training, their presence in class, and their availability; infrastructure for childfriendly schools; and the presence and contributions of parents in school affairs and the functioning of PTAs and SMCs. BED also uses enrollment information to determine needs for materials such as textbooks and uniforms, by grade. It also tracks health status of all children, as well as teachers living accommodations. In general, the BED deems EMIS and other information that the districts supply to be adequate and sufficiently accurate for these purposes, although delays in EMIS data availability can create difficulties (meeting/interview with GES BED Director). The EMIS does not produce the types of process information that BED needs, however. Such information includes student and teacher attendance, the manner in which textbooks and other teaching and learning materials are used in class, time on task, degree of coverage of the syllabus, extracurricular activities of the school, actual functioning of the SMC and the PTA, organization of the pedagogical staff, and the kinds of in-service training they receive. BED obtains this information from various other sources. These sources include the School Report Card (SRC; see below) introduced in 2010, although central recovery of SRC data from schools and districts is not yet stabilized, and is a topic of some debate (meeting/interview with GES BED and TED). BED is also working on some process indicators and measures for head teachers to implement at the school level. These include a teacher self-appraisal form and a teacher observation form (provided in a new head teacher manual just now going to press, developed/updated from 1984 version by BED-led team). BED also provides guidance to head teachers on the interpretation and use of School Education Assessment results. TED also carries out in-service training for head teachers on topics relating to information analysis and use. School Report Cards Because of the widespread perception that data follow a one-way path up the levels of government with little useful information trickling back down to the schools and communities, GES created School Report Cards, whereby the districts collect, process, analyze, and summarize the schools information and report it directly back to the schools. The main idea was to establish a completely decentralized data collection, analysis, and reporting system between the schools and the DEOs for the benefit of the schools and their communities. The SRC also focuses on processes including student and teacher attendance, circuit supervisor visits, SMC and PTA meetings, and information on student performance not included in the EMIS form. The GES designed questionnaires that are paper based, to be filled out by the head teacher. The districts carry out the data processing, analysis, and reporting using an Excel-based macro program specifically created for the School Report Card project (see an example of the School Report Card in Attachment 11). Information for Education Policy, Planning, 39

60 EMIS staff at the DEOs visited for this assessment (who are tasked with School Report Card processing at the district level) expressed concerns about the usefulness of this data system. They cited two major issues: (1) The original version of the Excel program had a bug, so the report cards produced were flawed; and (2) the head teachers task is arduous, requiring the provision of somewhat complex, aggregated information on percentages of teacher absentees and student absentees, and average child score per grade. One DEO respondent also mentioned that actors would value the School Report Cards more if they compared schools within the districts, so schools would know where they ranked among other schools. In fact, the software bug had been corrected, with an updated version available for download on the Web, and the SRC school-level report, which can be generated once data from all schools in a given district are entered, does in fact compare the school to the district average on all major performance indicators. And while some head teachers may need additional training to calculate the SRC indicators, in principle these are exactly the kinds of information they are expected to be producing in their own internal quality management efforts. In other words, shortfalls in communication between central and district levels, and in motivation of DEO EMIS staff to integrate SRC work into their routine, may be at the root of these concerns, rather than a flaw in the concept or design of the report card itself. At the same time, without proper training of all actors involved, focusing on the appropriate uses of the SRC as a constructive feedback tool for schools and their communities rather than an inspection mechanism, the SRC runs the risk of encouraging performance inflation reporting. The data provided through the SRC are costly to verify, and a given school may strive rather to appear to be performing better than other schools in the district, than to report accurate data for the purposes of self-evaluation and ongoing improvement. The SRC is discussed further in Section 4.3 as a key instrument for accountability to the community. School feeding program Currently, 1,698 schools participate in a government-funded school feeding program; these schools can be found in all 170 districts. In addition to helping increase enrollment, attendance, and performance, the program stimulates the local economy by employing local farmers and cooks. For this reason, the school feeding program falls under the Ministry of Local Government rather than the MOE or GES. DEOs, however, are directly responsible for choosing, monitoring, and inspecting schools participating in the school feeding programs on a regular basis. It is not clear whether districts use data-driven information to choose eligible schools. Neither of the DEOs visited used the GES Administration and Finance methodology and Resource Allocation Formula to establish target schools for feeding. While there are guidelines in the ESP on priority children i.e., seriously disadvantaged children (severely 40 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

61 disabled, orphans, street children, etc.) to receive school feeding, it is not clear whether anyone uses the EMIS (which collects information on vulnerable children) as the basis for prioritizing schools. Regardless, no national formula exists for choosing the most needy schools to participate in the school feeding program (or in other poverty-targeted programs, such as provision of school uniforms, for that matter). Similarly, the study team found no evidence that EMIS or SRC data were being used to monitor the possible impacts of the school feeding program, such as increased student enrollments, attendance, or performance in school. 4.3 Information for accountability If you don t have transparency, you don t have trust. Head of Dodowa Presby Basic School 2 In this section we explore how actors in Ghana s education sector share information. The investigation addressed transparency and accountability among the various levels of the education sector and with the public being served. It also considered the reliability of data, because transparency and accountability also require that the information shared be perceived to be accurate and unbiased. Below we first address accountability as an aspect of system management, and then as an obligation to the broader community Accountability and system management Accountability for system outcomes National-level information on pre-tertiary education system outcomes that is, student learning comes from three principal sources in Ghana. These are the National Education Assessment in reading and mathematics, carried out every two years at primary grades 3 and 6; the BECE results at the end of junior high school (grade 9); and the SSSCE and West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results at the end of senior high school (grade 12). The Trends in International Mathematics and Sciences Study (TIMSS) conducted in Ghana at grade 8 every few years also serves as an important international reference point, although more for strategic orientation than for direct accountability. The NEA. GES managers rely on the NEA results, among other things, to examine the performance of primary education as a whole over time, and the relative performance of regions. It should be noted that the NEA results, currently produced using a representative sample valid only at the national and regional levels, cannot be used to compare the results of individual districts. While the program has had its challenges and suffers from chronic underfunding (see Chapter 5), senior managers in the sector recognize the NEA s importance as a standardized source of information on primary Information for Education Policy, Planning, 41

62 school student learning across the country that is conducted independently of the direct supervisors of schools. BECE, SSSCE, and WASSSCE. The sector uses BECE, SSSCE, and WASSSCE results in the first instance to orient individual students at the end of junior and senior high school, but also to examine the relative performance of regions, districts, and schools within districts; and to remind these entities of their responsibilities in this regard. The WAEC produces a series of principal reports each year: (1) a summary of final results to its Board; (2) a report on the conduct of the exam; (3) three years of WASSCE performance statistics by gender; (4) BECE performance by gender and district; and (5) the Chief Examiner s Report. This last report covers in detail observed overall performance on every item in each examination. Schools are required to purchase two copies of the Chief Examiner s Report and to make one of these copies available to teachers. The specific utility of this report at the local level is limited by the fact that it does not contain the performance of individual schools, districts, or regions by item, although these entities are given their general ranking in terms of numbers and proportions of students meeting certain thresholds in point-ranking. As noted in Section 4.1.4, WAEC provides BECE results to the system (and to the general public) only in normalized format, based currently on a policy giving 60% of grade 9 students each year the opportunity to continue on to senior high school. In other words, from one year to the next, this most available BECE statistic the percentage of students passing the examination remains constant at 60% for the country as a whole. Thus, unlike the NEA, education managers cannot use BECE results in this form to examine overall improvement over time in students mastery of the concepts and skills tested. As a number of senior education officials pointed out, even the term BECE pass rate itself is a misnomer, because the exam is designed on a continuous number of points for each subject and is intended to aid in student orientation; it does not define performance in terms of passing or failing per se. Ministry officials and researchers have, on special request to the WAEC, been able to access and analyze BECE raw scores (meeting/interview with WAEC). Results of at least one such effort proved to be politically sensitive, however, as they challenged perceptions of the instructional quality of certain elite schools (meeting/interview with GES SED). Indeed, despite an admirable level of transparency in many respects, Ghana s education system remains steadfastly resistant to the publication of performance information in league tables or in other ways that could invite or facilitate direct comparisons among schools, districts, or regions. For some, the resistance is testament to the strength of the teachers unions. The creation of the National Inspectorate Board may offer an effective counterbalance, and strengthen focus on education quality and performance (meeting/interview with Strengthening Transparency, Accountability, and Responsibility in Ghana [STAR-Ghana]). 42 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

63 Financial accountability for expenditures at the national level We reviewed the planning and budget cycle in Section It is noteworthy that real expenditures information compiled to the national level, however, were difficult to come by in any detail. To the degree that expenditures are considered in the annual review and budgeting cycle, they are generally available in the form of stylized inputs into MTEF simulation projections, and only on paper for most system managers in a series of hefty volumes. Expenditures tracking, even of multi-donor budget support, is not a regular feature of the national annual review process. A Public Expenditures Tracking Survey (the PETS 2000 ) conducted in Ghana s education sector over 10 years ago raised serious concerns at the time, given its conclusion that roughly 50% of public funds spent on education could not be accounted for. A similar exercise, or even a more thorough Education Accounts study that would capture household, other private and donor as well as public contributions to the sector, seems well overdue. Decentralization and management accountability With decentralization, Ghana s education system is faced with developing the governance and supervision capacity of schools and DEOs. Both basic education and secondary education divisions have been working on guidelines and conducting workshops to strengthen the skills and tools of school heads and DEO inspectors with regard to staff and student evaluation, including the communication of evaluation criteria to the people who will be evaluated (meetings/interviews with GES BED and SED). At the school level, supervision poses a particular challenge. According to one school head interviewed, teachers need more supervision, and better, more robust supervision. But local supervision can be difficult, because the head teacher has no real authority over teachers, insofar as hiring and firing are still centrally controlled. (The Education Act of 2008 calls for decentralization of teacher contracting to the district level; however, this change has yet to come into effect.) This head teacher, therefore, makes abundant use of simple transparency techniques primarily as a tool of performance management. In plain sight in his office are posted a number of charts presenting running information about each teacher, by name. Charts summarize teachers attendance, lesson plan preparation, and homework assignments given to students, indicating each teacher s performance on these indicators over the year by week, month, and term. In other words, expected performance is known to all, as is each person s performance relative to expectations (meeting/interview with Dodowa Presby Basic School 2). While this practice may be an exception rather than the rule in Ghana s primary and basic schools, it illustrates what can be done with simple tools to create accountability for teacher performance Accountability to the broader public Accountability to the public can also take a number of forms, and ideally should cover both inputs (what resources are put into the system, and how they are used) and outcomes. In its rhetoric and in local practice, Ghana s education sector takes public Information for Education Policy, Planning, 43

64 accountability very seriously. National and local-level public accountability mechanisms, touched on in earlier sections, are examined here in greater detail. Mechanisms for dissemination, sharing, and dialogue at the national level In principle, national-level transparency in the education sector appears to be well served. For example, Ghana s National Education Sector Annual Review, discussed in Section 4.1.2, is a mediatized public event. In addition, the Education Sector Performance Report is a public document, and publicly available research on the performance of the sector is quite abundant. The SRIMPR Division of the Ministry of Education is charged not only with EMIS and research, but also with documentation, publication, and public relations. The ministry also acknowledges the potential of the Internet as a means of effective communication and dialogue with the public. For a variety of reasons and despite considerable (if inconsistent) funding support, in practice the ministry so far has been unable to realize the promise of a fully functional and reliable public information portal for the education sector. Instead, the EMIS readily produces and disseminates annual statistics results on CD and on paper in concise, twopage summary reports for the national level and for each region and district. This is laudable, and a very positive step in the right direction. Analyzable statistical tables, however, are not yet available publicly, even though making such information available and downloadable via the Internet has become the norm in OECD countries and in many African and other developing countries. Ghana s own GSS participates in a number of Internet-based public data dissemination initiatives; these initiatives could serve as a useful model for the education sector. The Ministry of Education s documentation center currently consists of a poorly organized reading room, with little evidence of regular maintenance to ensure that the most recent documents produced are available. The sector s plan to digitize its archives, once realized, will be another welcome and positive step; it is unclear, however, how thoroughly the volume of work to compile and catalogue all relevant documents has been assessed, nor whether any time frame for this work has been defined or adequate funding secured. Outside the public sector, as noted before, a number of NGOs, research entities, and consortia including CREATE, RECOUP, IPA, and others are engaged in producing publicly available research about the sector. The STAR-Ghana program is an important, unique initiative in this regard, with pooled funding from multiple donors and a singular focus: increasing and fostering transparency about public service delivery in Parliament and in civil society from communities to the highest level, ultimately leading to policy change. The program has the capacity to fund innovative work in a number of priority sectors, including education (meeting/interview with STAR-Ghana). 44 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

65 District and local financial accountability Even if expenditures tracking at the national level has generally remained unavailable to the public, practices of local financial transparency and accountability were impressive in the districts visited. DEOs are expected to post their received budgets, including capitation grant funds (see Section 4.2.3); and to make use of radio, town meetings, and the SPAM process (see below) to ensure that communities have adequate access to budget information (meeting/interview with GES Financial Controller). Indeed, all district offices and the basic school visited had duly posted their received term budgets, enrollments, and capitation grant tranches received. According to one DEO Finance Officer, presentations to the public can sometimes even result in new contributions, since people are generally surprised to hear how small the budget and capitation grants are (meeting/interview with DEO West Akim, Finance Officer). The school visited regularly presents and discusses budget expenditures with the local PTA: Since the money is coming from them, we have a responsibility to account for it, explained the Dodowa Presby Basic School 2 Head. Accountability for student outcomes The public is also interested in school performance and student learning outcomes. At the basic school level, the School Educational Assessment in grades 2 and 5 is a reading and mathematics NEA-type assessment administered by GES circuit supervisors. The information it provides may be shared at School Performance Appraisal Meetings as a measure of school performance, although SEA instrument administration has not occurred regularly as planned since its introduction in 2006, with concerns over cost, quality, coverage, and effective utilization. Intended to help teachers understand students learning needs, the SEA has come to be seen as a high-stakes evaluation, with the result that the process has been marred by cheating and unscrupulous proctoring. As described in Section 4.1.4, from the mid-1990s until 2002, schools had already been using the Performance Monitoring Test, a criterion-referenced testing system funded by the World Bank with technical support from Cape Coast University, in grades 2, 4, and 6. While similar to the SEA, this test was seen to be more rigorous, as it was administered annually and proctored (at greater expense) by DEO staff. It remains to be seen whether the new SEA system can return to its original purpose (formative evaluation), and achieve some level of sustainability and greater quality, with limited outside funding and technical support ( communication with USAID/Ghana). BECE and SSSCE results are also presented annually to District Assemblies by WAEC national and regional staff, creating an opportunity for exchange on these important milestones for students and on districts overall ranking relative to the region or the country as a whole. In the course of providing the results, WAEC representatives also share with District Assemblies how they can help education in their communities. WAEC has found that local governments are generally very receptive to these meetings, as the examination results are not otherwise readily available in this form (meeting/interview Information for Education Policy, Planning, 45

66 with WAEC management). As one DEO director put it, the BECE result is our principal indicator of quality (meeting/interview with DEO Dangme West, Director). On an individual student basis, the education sector provides a template to schools for reporting students academic performance to parents each term. At least one informationzealous head teacher has adapted and computerized this official Student Report Card, so that parents see on one page not only their child s performance for the term at hand, but also cumulative information across the three terms of the year (meeting/interview with Dodowa Presby Basic School 2). The SPIP/SPAM process In addition to a tradition of local student assessment with the Performance Monitoring Test in the 1990s and the current SEA, Ghanaian basic schools since the 1990s have conducted community-level School Performance Appraisal Meetings (SPAMs) and prepared School Performance Improvement Plans (SPIPs) based on the results of these meetings. With the advent of the capitation grants in 2005, the SPIP/SPAM process became the formal mechanism by which communities determine how their school would use the capitation grant funds, and by which schools account for the use of these funds in a public and transparent manner. As described by the Director of Basic Education, The SPAM is used to inform the community and produce the SPIP, so that it is no longer just a shopping list to use the capitation grant. SPAMs may also be held on an ad hoc basis on the recommendation of DEO or a circuit supervisor, to resolve school-level performance concerns (meeting/interview with DEO Dangme West, Director). On the whole, the SPIP/SPAM process was viewed as a positive and important venue for communication and discussion with the community on information and pressing school issues related to both finance and school performance. Some development partners have raised the concern that the process is not yet institutionalized, since schools rely principally on external sources to fund SPAM activities. At the same time, capitation grant disbursement officially requires that a school possess a current SPIP formally approved by the DEO Director and the DEO budget officer (meeting/interview with DEO West Akim, Finance Officer). Thus, schools should in principle have an intrinsic motivation to carry out the process, although the size of capitation grants and the degree of official insistence on a community-wide SPAM to produce the SPIP may not provide sufficient impetus in all instances. It is noteworthy that the document Guidelines for Distribution and Utilisation of Capitation Grants (GES, n.d.), while providing a SPIP template and indicating that the School Management Committee should be involved in its development, makes no mention of the SPAM. On the other end of the spectrum, at least one basic school exists that has a 10-year plan and a short-term plan, as well as a SPIP for the use of the capitation grant (interview with Dodowa Presby Basic School 2). While secondary education does not yet have a SPIP/SPAM-type process, it is moving in that direction. Senior high school parent-teacher associations exist and meet once or 46 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

67 twice a year, with school performance being one of the key topics of discussion. Senior high schools also prepare a School Performance Assessment Report, or SPAR (meeting/interview with GES SED). School-level performance reports Two initiatives launched in one by the GES (with USAID funding) and the other by SRIMPR/EMIS (with World Bank funding and technical assistance from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics [UIS] and ADEA) attest to a growing interest in local actors and clients of the education system having ready access to information about the performance of individual schools in relation to the broader district and region in which they are located. Both initiatives produce reports based on data collected directly from schools, although the EMIS school report is an automated report generated from the annual school census database and thus does not require a separate data collection and compilation effort. The purpose of the GES School Report Card, as described in its Implementation Manual (GES, 2010), is to foster constructive exchange and action among all actors in the school community and district: school management, teachers, students, parents, DEO, district assembly, and the broader community. This purpose is reflected in the content of the report card, which covers student attendance and performance; textbook availability relative to enrollment; and teacher attendance, qualifications, and curriculum coverage by year s end. In terms of school management, it includes number of circuit supervisor visits; attendance at staff meetings; meetings of the School Management Committee and PTA; and sources, nature, and amounts of resource contributions to the school. (See also Section above.) The School Report Card was designed in a format that can be managed entirely by the school and the DEO, and to culminate each year in a presentation during the School Performance Appraisal Meeting with parents and the broader community. Head teachers are responsible for completing the data collection form, and DEOs for preparing the School Report Card itself. This process translates the raw data provided in the data collection form into indicators, and juxtaposes these indicators for the given school, against the same indicators for the district level. To date, software glitches have impeded the preparation of the automated version of the DEO form, and thereby slowed the process of uptake of the initiative in some, if not many, schools and districts, during its first year of implementation. The funding source (USAID) has confirmed that about 40% of districts produced School Report Cards for their schools in , although activity reporting from the GES is not yet complete. The degree of publication and the number of SPAM activities with parents and communities using the School Report Card are not known. Although the initiative is promising and has strong institutional support at the national level, its full potential remains to be realized. Some surmise that some schools are reluctant to participate in the School Report Card due to the inclusion of information on politically sensitive issues such as teacher attendance and SEA results. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 47

68 The EMIS Basic School Report (see Attachment 12), which is limited to information already available through the annual school census, is unable to cover the process and performance information highlighted in the School Report Card. At the same time, the Basic School Report does a good job of summarizing a lot of information on the school and relating it to the district in which the school is situated. In fact, the two reports are largely complementary, and could well be used in tandem to support School Performance Appraisal Meeting discussions. In principle, with continuing decentralization of the EMIS data management process, DEOs should also soon be able to be generate the Basic School Report at their level. If it were quickly generated and returned to schools to confirm the accuracy of data compiled from the school census, it could also serve as an important means to improve accuracy of the overall EMIS database. The real value and utility of either instrument lies in what local actors and the community do with the information it provides. In this respect, the School Report Card as an instrument for community action and school improvement has some distance to go, and the EMIS Basic School Report has yet to define its purpose. Joining forces at the local level, to exploit the complementarity of the instruments and to confront the technical and communications challenges that both instruments face, could be especially fruitful. Local organs for public oversight and accountability In principle, School Management Committees and parent-teacher associations at the school level, and the DEO Council at the district level, should play a critical role in the local public oversight of education. The School Management Committee is intended to involve a broad spectrum of community actors in school governance, management, and performance monitoring. In practice, the functionality of these three bodies is extremely variable, according to sector officials and development partners alike, although positive examples exist and merit study (e.g., the Links program with PTAs in Northern Ghana). Higher-level federated PTA structures, which could bring issues to the decision table, are virtually nonexistent. 5. Overview of Key Existing Information Systems for Basic and Secondary Education The previous sections of the report have described how and to what degree data and information are used by national and decentralized actors of the education sector in carrying out strategic, operational, and accountability functions. These sections have also reported on users concerns and questions about the availability and quality of data and information, and to some degree on how the sector works around these shortcomings, sometimes with duplication of effort. In effect, the previous sections have established and examined the nature and quality of the sector s demand for information. The present section turns to the supply of information, through a review of the major data and information systems cited by the actors in interviews and documents. Taking each 48 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

69 system in turn, we describe its various dimensions (principal purpose; content; observation units or level(s) of information; time frame; data collection, compilation and storage, and verification processes; and reporting and exploitation processes), identify gaps or areas for improvement along each dimension, and note special challenges that exist for maintaining and improving each system. The data systems examined in this way are the following: 1. The Education Management Information System (EMIS, maintained by SRIMPR); 2. Student learning assessment and examinations data systems, including the NEA (maintained by CRDD/Assessment Services Unit [ASU]) and the BECE/SSSCE/WASSCE databases (maintained by WAEC); 3. GES budget and financial management data systems (Activex, maintained by GES/AF and PBME; manual expenditures management systems, and GIFMIS); 4. GES human resources information management (IPPD, maintained by GES/AF/IPPD; and manual approaches); 5. Other Education sector approaches to managing strategic and operational information; and 6. Population census and survey information systems (GPC, GLSS, GDHS, MICS, and others, maintained by Ghana Statistical Service [GSS]). 5.1 Education Management Information System (EMIS) The Education Management Information System is the source of the education sector s official statistics on pre-university educational institutions. Structures responsible for maintaining this system are the MEO s SRIMPR at the central level, and REO and DEO Statistics and Planning units at decentralized levels. Table 5 summarizes the study s findings and analysis of the EMIS system. A more detailed review of the EMIS is provided in the companion document to this report. Table 5. Summary of study findings and analysis of the EMIS Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Principal purpose of database To provide comprehensive data and official statistics on schools for the Annual School Census Report, Education Sector Performance Report, and Annual Education Report, for strategic and operational purposes. While intended to provide information for both strategic planning and for operational management, the database is often not used for operational purposes, due to managers lack of confidence in the quality of the data, difficulty of access to disaggregated data for secondary manipulation, and preference to work with real Ensure stability and timeliness of funding for key EMIS operations (notably for data collection, processing, verification, and dissemination), so that EMIS would be better equipped to produce annual data on time and with higher quality. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 49

70 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations time data rather than with data that may be several months old by the time they are available to managers. Not all of the data collected are being analyzed or used. Every five years, the school census form undergoes review; however, evidently new items are added to the form more often than items are removed in the course of a given review. Content of database The current EMIS database contains information on public and private sector crèches, kindergartens, primary schools, junior high schools, basic schools, and senior high schools. Provides data for estimation of key indicators relating to coverage (GER, NER), service ratios (PTR, PTTR, PTLMR), efficiency, equity, and for resource distribution and management, and performance monitoring. Students: Enrollments; repeaters; previous year BECE and WASSCE candidates, passes and pass rates; disaggregated by gender, grade level. EMIS was intended to incorporate tertiary education institutions and non-formal education. However, these datasets are currently maintained separately by their respective departments. Streamline the EMIS school census. A thorough, systematic review of the EMIS school census forms is warranted, with careful consideration of which information could be removed, or moved to a more appropriate sample survey process, in order to shorten the form and facilitate its proper completion and timely return. Teachers: Name, gender, discipline, certification/ training status, and more can be disaggregated by gender, grade level (basic). Teaching and learning materials: Textbooks disaggregated by subject area and grade level. Infrastructure and equipment: At the database level, analysis by region, district are possible. Information is available in the database at the school and teacher levels. School- and teacher-level census of crèches, kindergartens, primary schools, junior and senior secondary schools. Annual: Collection officially takes place in October, though often continues into November. Principal level of information Time frame (from collection to dissemination) For maximum utility in ESPR/AESOP and MDBS planning cycles, data need to be available for analysis by March. The entire EMIS process has been delayed in the past several years, notably in 2010, with delays in funding cited by SRIMPR as the principal cause. The 2010 NESAR was postponed by three months while waiting for EMIS data to become available. Challenges: Funding arrives late every year. As the fiscal year is Jan Dec, funds are Ensure funding stability and timeliness for key EMIS operations. Speed transmission of EMIS program updates and data. Where possible, use technology to improve efficiency of database update installation and retrieval of entered data. Protect Statistics staff availability for EMIS work at particular 50 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

71 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations often no longer available by Oct Nov, the period of greatest EMIS activity (data collection). Often, the needed budget itself is cut, in addition to funds not being available on time. crunch times of year. Establish a standard, start-ofschool-year snap census, for which DEO offices would be primarily responsible. This form, linked to the larger EMIS database, would provide essential information for operations in a timely manner earlier in the school year. Some districts have already produced effective forms of this sort, and examples from South Africa and other countries are also available. Strenuously pursue 100% coverage of all registered schools. A computer-based master school-registration list frame should be established for all districts, to permit calculation of coverage and to rapidly identify and resolve cases of non-reporting schools. Data collection process and verification of school coverage Data collection for basic education schools and senior high schools is carried out using the Annual School Census form. MoE prints the forms, which are delivered to the regions, then districts, then schools. Questionnaires are filled out by the head teacher and returned to the district for data entry. SRIMPR officials physically travel to each district to collect entered data. While requested by donors and others, verification of coverage of the database in other words, the degree of school reporting is not systematically applied. Challenges: Some schools are very far from the districts and do not have resources for transportation to collect and return the questionnaires. Data already gathered and processed by WAEC, MESW, MLGRD, and GSS are also incorporated into the EMIS database. Data entry has recently ( ) been decentralized to the DEO level, an ambitious and positive step for data quality and efficiency in the long term. Districts enter the data on local databases, using a data entry system specifically designed for this purpose. Paper questionnaires are archived on site. Regional or central SRIMPR officials then compile data from the districts by physically retrieving the data from each machine, or using thumb drives. Data compilation and storage process The data platform is Structured Query Language (SQL) Webbased since 2002, developed by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). Currently, any major updates have to be done by UIS. EMIS unit now has Current, physical data compilation process (merging information coming from multiple machines in each of 170 DEO offices) is high-effort and involves considerable risk of data loss due to viruses, drive failure, and human error. The current process has resulted in observed cases of duplicate identification codes for two or more schools. While the data entry system is currently Web-based, DEOs have only local area networks (LANs), thus the full potential of the Web-based system is not being exploited. There has been little training of the district staff in several years (although there was a training Strengthen networking and Internet access and use in district and regional offices. Clearly, among the next steps for the effective decentralization of EMIS data processing is providing functional and stable Internet access in districts and regions. An off-line/on-line batching process for data entry, uploading and automated compilation, such as that employed by WAEC, is also recommended, given local realities of electrical and Internet stability. DEO and REO EMIS units will require equipment upgrading as well as additional training to make effective use of an Internet-based data entry system. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 51

72 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations partial but not total ownership of the SQL program. Director is hoping to move toward total ownership. session in ). Currently, any major updates to the data platform have to be done by UIS. The EMIS unit is moving toward total ownership of the SQL program, but is not yet at that stage. Challenges: District staff turnover rate is very high. Some staff are not properly trained in data entry. Large proportion of the district EMIS computers are infected with computer virus. Most districts do not appear to conduct any form of data verification, and they may not have the capacity to conduct these verifications. Data verification process Some field verification may be done at some district level, but there are no formal policies in place for data verification. The software provides certain data validation routines during the data entry process. However, standard verification and consistency checking routines are not well documented at the national level. Improve data accuracy through strengthened data verification routines. EMIS must put in place and enforce clear guidelines and procedures to conduct verification of data collection and data entry at district to national levels. More data quality checks could be integrated into the EMIS data entry program, including year-by-year school-level enrollment tracking (with flagging of unusual changes), and consistency checks across related tables. As noted above, a computerbased master school-registration list frame should be established for all districts, to permit calculation of coverage and to rapidly identify and resolve cases of non-reporting schools. Planned and systematic comparison of EMIS data with other well-documented data collection on key information (notably, GES/AF and GES/SED collections of enrollment data for purposes of distributing capitation grants and the secondary equivalent, as well as selected data from the School Report Card) can provide another test of data reliability. Such comparisons would need to allow for real fluctuations in student and teacher numbers during the school year. 52 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

73 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Reporting and utilization The Annual School Census Report provides information on enrollment, coverage, completion, and teacher qualification. This report constitutes the principal output of the SRIMPR at present. SRIMPR provides EMIS report on the website and via CDs that are distributed to the districts. Special requests for data or queries must be prepared by letter; EMIS plans to establish a system to track requests. Increasingly, with the capacity to export district-level EMIS data to Excel, some DEOs are showing considerable initiative in exploiting provisional EMIS data for local management purposes. The same information is repeated in tables, graphs, and figures. Reports are frequently late; EMIS does not make raw data routinely available to outside users, leaving enormous amounts of data unused. Key reports do not permit ready comparison of district or regional performance, or of performance over time at these levels. Develop EMIS automated reporting further, to respond to stakeholder needs and to utilize information in the census form that is not currently regularly reported. With a request-tracking system in place, EMIS is encouraged to consolidate similar and recurring requests and develop additional standard reports based on these requests. SRIMPR to develop improved sharing of data with potential users; by providing data in a more timely fashion and making data more easily accessible via a more user-friendly inquiry system, available to all potential stake holders. More time-series and comparative reports would offer additional useful information to decision-makers, education managers, and clients. Training of DEO and REO EMIS staff in data manipulation and analysis with Excel pivot tables should continue to be supported, with clear expectations for performance for those trained. 5.2 Student learning assessment and examinations data systems Information on student learning and achievement is essential for all decision makers and managers concerned with the quality and performance of schools and of education in general. As we have seen, Ghana has demonstrated commitment to measuring student learning in a rigorous manner over time, through efforts for local and district performance monitoring and formative evaluation such as the PMT and the SEA; periodic, samplebased country-wide assessments such as the National Education Assessment (NEA, carried out by the Assessment and Standards Unit of the GES/CRDD), and the international TIMSS program; and participation in the WAEC. Below we examine the NEA (Table 6) and the WAEC (Table 7) information systems, given their particular importance and potential as sources of information for strategic planning, decision-making, and evaluation relating to system quality. The TIMSS, while it also falls into this category, is not presented in depth, as it is well documented elsewhere. Indeed, the TIMSS, in addition to the student performance data it provides, offers a valuable model of international methodological standards for the NEA process. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 53

74 Table 6. Dimension Purpose Content of database Summary of study findings and analysis of the National Educational Assessment (NEA) system Description Evaluation of primary education subsector performance as a whole, at national and regional levels. The system is intended to track performance over time, with administrations every two years since when it began in The NEA database contains information from a 3% sample of all basic and primary schools across the country, randomly selected from the EMIS database as a sampling frame. All children from primary grades 3 and 6 in the sampled schools are tested. Specific information in the dataset for each administration includes grade level, gender, and scores on specially designed English reading, listening, and maths competency tests for all students tested. Students identity is protected. Little additional school status or teacher information is collected or available in the Areas For Improvement The sampling frame limits the program s ability to estimate system performance at the district level. Comparability of test instruments over time is not known, therefore limiting the validity of inferences made from observed trends. Only a small amount of information about the schools and classrooms in which the tested children are learning is collected or maintained in the database. Although some of this information could be obtained from other existing sources such as EMIS, the lack of strong identification routines during data collection and entry render the linking of individual students to specific teachers or classrooms tedious, if not impossible. Even linking an individual student s performance across subject areas is not possible with current student identification practices. These factors severely constrain the types of analyses that can be Specific Recommendations Strengthen quality and rigor of the NEA. Given the NEA s strategic importance to Ghana s education sector as the sole nationally representative source of student performance in the primary years, itsquality and rigor should be a high priority for the sector. Establish an organizational framework... be established with an Advisory Board, in line with the National Council on Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) to oversee the assessments at all levels (ASU, 2010, pp ). Given the strategic importance and potential of the activity, this request by the ASU is entirely appropriate. While costly, extending the sample to enough schools in each district would permit statistical significance inference testing for performance variations across districts, where much of the concern about equitable distribution of education resources is situated. Careful specification, review and banking of NEA items and instruments. A careful review of assessment items included in the NEA is warranted to ensure that items adequately measure the skills and knowledge that the MOE wishes to evaluate. Rigorous item and test construction specifications need to be developed, documented, and applied. Test questions should cover a broader range of difficulty at each grade level, to detect distinctions at the lower levels of competence. Correct response options should not differ drastically in format from incorrect response options. 54 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

75 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations NEA database. conducted using the NEA datasets. As noted above, item quality and instrument comparability over time are questionable, further limiting the usefulness of the current system. As the ASU has requested (ASU Annual Report 2010), assistance to establish an item bank would help to stabilize the quality of items and to track item performance over time. Link student data across subject areas and by teacher, to increase analytical options. Student identification coding requires strengthening to permit student-level linking of performance across subject areas and to facilitate linking with EMIS at the class/teacher level. Additional school- and teacher-level data could also be obtained by linking the NEA to sampled schools School Report Card information, if common schoollevel coding is applied. Capacity building is needed to ensure sufficiently sensitive test design to detect distinctions in lower levels of competence and to ensure adequately representative sampling at national and regional levels. Principal level of information Data are available for analysis down to the individual student level. The sampling frame permits regional- and nationallevel inference. NEA is conducted every two years, with several months from data collection (May June in 2011) to dissemination (September or later). Time frame (from collection to dissemination) 2005, 2007, and 2009 NEA cycles were not administered at the same time of the academic year. Competing priorities in the ASU have contributed to time lags between data collection and dissemination. Establish std. NEA administration time frame. Stabilizing the time frame for data collection is necessary to permit valid comparison over time. Reducing the time from collection to dissemination would increase the utility of the results. Strengthen quality,rigor, and reliability of the data collection process. Clarification of roles and responsibilities at the district level and increased training and supervision of test administrators are warranted. Data collection process Test administrators are trained, travel to all sampled schools, and administer the multiple choice test that contains English, math and listening sections. Tests are administered in one day at each school. Data collection normally takes place over a 3- In general terms, data collection is a particular challenge because, as ASU has observed, the assessment system has no defined organizational structure at the regional and district levels with adequately trained personnel to undertake Concerns about children s Information for Education Policy, Planning, 55

76 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations day period. Students record their answers on scannable bubble sheets. Completed tests are collected by test administrators and delivered immediately to the district offices. ASU representatives pick up the completed tests from the district offices and deliver them to a central office in Accra. the activity, thereby lacking skill transfer for sustainability (ASU, 2010, pp ). The ability of P3 and P6 children to properly fill in bubble answer sheets has been called into question. Selected schools may have shut down since the selection process, or no longer meet requirements set forth for eligibility. Some schools may not be accessible due to natural occurrences (such as flooding). As noted above, student identifiers do not appear to permit linking students reading and maths papers, or to link students to their teachers or classrooms. ability to use the bubble answer sheets properly should be tested via a recognized method. In addition, the degree to which weak reading skills may impede performance on the math section of the test should also be tested and, if necessary, mitigated. Individualized testing on at least a portion of the instrument is one method to do so. The sampling frame used in the field should include clear rules for school replacement as necessary. Data compilation and storage process Data are compiled and stored at ASU headquarters in Accra. Tests are passed through a bubble sheet scanner, while other information is entered by trained data operators. Raw (paper) answer sheets are sorted and filed in filing cabinets. School ID, student gender, grade, subject, and form number are verified prior to scanning. A random sample of forms is reviewed to ensure that student responses to questions are being properly recorded in the database. Routine consistency checks are also performed on data scanned into the computer. A final report highlights the findings of each assessment. Assessment results are disseminated internally within the GES during a workshop and then released to the press. Data verification process Reporting and utilization Proportions of children reaching calculated minimum competency and proficiency levels are reported at the national and regional levels, by grade, gender, and subject NEA 2005, 2007, 2009 did not use sufficiently rigorous methodology to ensure unbiased results or to make statistical inferences of the population of interest. The reports do not provide sufficient information to determine whether sampling weights were properly used. Indeed, NEA reports to date do not mention any use of sampling weights, so reported point estimates (means and Strengthen capacity in application and reporting of sampling weights. This improvement is called for, to ensure that means and proportions are properly estimated at aggregated levels. Making data available in a more timely manner would increase the potential benefit of conducting these assessments. 56 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

77 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations matter. Analyses and reports are prepared centrally, with the participation of four analysts in English and maths subjects. proportions) are most likely biased at the national level. It can frequently take many months before data are ready to be disseminated. Eventually, access to the data sets for secondary analysis by outside researchers would likely increase their utilization and ultimate usefulness to the sector. Table 7. Dimension Purpose Content of database Principal level of information Time frame (from collection to dissemination) Data collection process Summary of study findings and analysis of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) data system Description Management of BECE, SSSCE and WASSCE student-level test papers and results, for provision of information to students, placement, and diplomas. Students raw and adjusted scores on BECE, SSSCE, WASSCE by subject area. Other student information includes student s gender, school, and continuous assessment (class term) results by subject (term grades constitute 30% of the student s final grade). Individual student BECE examinations were administered on April 11 18, 2011; grading started on May 9. Grading is conducted nationwide in secondary schools. For CSSPS to begin its work of student placement, raw scores and scores for students SHS choices are generally available two weeks after grading begins. Pre-examination work: Each year, JHS and SHS are inspected twice, first by GES/ID to accredit examination centers, and a second time by WAEC to confirm. WAEC develops examinations from CRDD curriculum and conducts training programs to help develop teachers capacity to write good examination items. DEOs coordinate awareness-raising orientation sessions/ briefings with exam supervisors and report candidates to REOs, which relay the information to the national level. This process is now computerized through an electronic school-based candidate registration. Schools and districts enter information that is then batched and uploaded. Day(s) of examination: Examination centers are proctored and supervised by trained examiners. Students record their answers on scannable bubble sheets for multiple choice items and on open sheets for written Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Information for Education Policy, Planning, 57

78 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations sections of exams. Data compilation and storage process Completed Examination sheets are transported to marking centers equipped with computers and evaluators. The objective part of tests is optically scanned (one page persubject per-student). The written part of tests is pre-graded by evaluators, then transferred to a subject sheet containing information for 5 6 students per sheet. This reduced information is then hand-entered into the computer. Marking venues will have one or more computers and examiners per computer, with up to 150 examiners per center. Center accreditation, training of supervisors and proctors, and supervision of examination centers conducted to control quality of examination-taking process. Reliance on bubble sheets for objective sections of test eliminates correction bias and data-entry errors for these sections. Data verification process Post-exam, a school or other entity may request a test re-grading or other sort of investigation of an examination or grading center, although this is very rare. If a sanction is requested by the Board, the Director General will work with the GES to take action as needed. BECE, SSSCE, and WASSCE raw scores are provided to the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS). This entity carries out placement of BECEtakers into senior high schools and other post-basic institutions, and notifies schools and students of their placements. Reporting and utilization Other reports, produced by WAEC, include the item-by-item Examiner s Report, regional-level reporting on three-year trends in SSSCE and WASSCE results, and districtlevel BECE results. These reports present only adjusted scores, that is, scores adjusted to national criteria for the proportions of students achieving certain point ranges. More effort appears to be needed to ensure appropriate interpretation of normed scores, and to correct the pass / fail notion. Analytical potential of historical WAEC database is largely untapped. Conduct trend analysis of BECE and SSSCE raw scores. Routine secondary trend analysis of raw scores on BECE and SSSCE exams would assist the sector to examine achievement changes over time in a costeffective way. 5.3 GES Budget and financial management information systems The 2010 Education Sector Performance Report clearly underscores the importance given to sound financial management in the course of ESP implementation, invoking its legal framework: In implementing the plan, financial reporting obligations of the Ministry as required by Sections 41 and 190 of the FAA and FAR will be fulfilled. Financial reports that seek to present a comprehensive account of all other 58 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

79 financial reporting obligations of the Ministry will be produced yearly and this will be supported by the Internal Auditing System using IAA Act, 2003 (Act 658).... To achieve this, the Ministry since 2007 has fulfilled Section 41 of the Financial Administration Act (FAA) 2003, Act 654 and Section 190 of the Financial Administration Regulations (FAR) 2004 L to produce financial reports that seek to present a comprehensive account of all other financial transactions and further produced a very comprehensive audit manual to ensure consistency in work ethics. (ESPR, 2010, p. 15) As noted in Chapter 4.2, the MOE and GES use financial data systems that, once fully operational and decentralized, should provide the education system with accurate, accessible data at all levels of decentralization. Current systems include a customized ActiveX-platform database system (used for annual AESOP budgeting and preparation of the Medium Term Expenditures Framework) and monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reporting, conducted manually, on the part of every entity receiving public funds (for the accounting of expenditures). A new government-wide system, the Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System (GIFMIS) is anticipated to gradually replace both of these current systems Customized ActiveX database for budget development Analysis of the Activex system is provided in Table 8 below, followed by a brief discussion of the current manual expenditures reporting. Table 8. Summary of study findings and analysis of the ActiveX data system as used by GES for the Ministry of Education Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Purpose The MOE s ActiveX system supports the compilation of central and decentralized budget information as part of the annual budgeting exercise and the creation of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. Annual Personnel Emoluments, Administration, Service, and Investment budget figures in item-level detail, coded to identify the reporting managing entity (district, region, or central GES department), account, detailed budget line category, activity, output, ESP objective, organization, source of funding, and priority. Content of database Information for Education Policy, Planning, 59

80 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Principal level(s) of information Data are entered according to the reporting management entities from the district to the central level. The ActiveX data system permits presentation of data along the coded dimensions (location, account, detailed budget line category, activity, output, ESP objective, organization, source of funding, and priority) Budgeting data are entered and adjusted during the MOE planning and budgeting exercise each year, which begins in April May and culminates in September with the finalization of the next year s budget and preparation of the following year s MTEF. Time frame (from collection to dissemination) Delays early in the budget preparation cycle can create serious bottlenecks at the approach of the deadline. Decentralize budget data entry. Decentralization of data entry could improve the timeliness of initial budget drafting. It is anticipated that GIFMIS will offer this facility. The formal budget preparation cycle, properly executed, allows sufficient time for MOE to meet government deadlines. Each GES central division, as well as decentralized offices, (DEO and REO) completes an estimated cost form for each activity described in its draft annual operational plan. GES finance staff enter the data from these forms into ActiveX in the course of meetings with the divisions and decentralized offices. Data collection Initial budget drafts, since they are produced manually by technical managers of the activities being budgeted, cannot take advantage of the ActiveX system's automated unit cost categories and calculation formulae in the process of budget construction. Decentralize budget data entry.decentralization of data entry could improve the quality of initial budget drafts, by providing automated standard unit costs and formulas to GES divisions and offices charged with preparing these drafts. It is anticipated that GIFMIS will offer this facility. Data compilation and storage Data entered from individual divisions and offices by GES finance are automatically compiled into the common ActiveX database, maintained at MOE headquarters. GES Finance staff review the realism of unit costs and other budgeting estimation assumptions during data entry. Data verification Data entry is itself confirmed through review of printouts by the drafting division or office. Entered data are reviewed by PBME to determine if adjustments are needed to accommodate budget ceiling While unit costs and other budgeting estimation assumptions are reviewed during data entry by GES Finance and again by PBME, the process does not appear to be formalized in such a way as to ensure that it is systematic, consistent, and comprehensive. Improve data verification of financial information. Clarification, documentation, and consistent application of data verification procedures at all stages is warranted. Some of these procedures may be automated within ActiveX, and eventually in GIFMIS. 60 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

81 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations revisions. Reporting and utilization The budget data contained in the ActiveX system are published in four volumes of The Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). Three volumes contain district-level data. A fourth volume presents Ministry of Education Headquarters summaries of expenditure estimates. The ActiveX data system permits presentation of data along the coded dimensions (location, account, detailed budget line category, activity, output, ESP objective, organization, source of funding, and priority). Although MTEF documents are publically available, their content is not presented in a readily accessible form for lay audiences. Despite ActiveX functions that could generate summary tables, such as total estimated service, administration, investment, and personnel emolument expenditures by the coded dimensions, it does not appear that these kinds of analyses are currently being produced on a regular basis. Provide internet access to budget and expenditures information. Internet access to final budget structure and content, with a variety of automated reports at different levels of aggregation, as well as user-generated tables, could be made available with the current ActiveX system. Such functionality would significantly increase the effective transparency of the annual budget for stakeholders. It is anticipated that the GIFMIS system will provide this functionality, Managing data on expenditures and for resource distribution Data collection for routine expenditure tracking, a predominantly manual affair, currently lacks the desired characteristics of an efficient data system. Consolidated fund monies are released monthly through the government treasury directly to ministry agencies, DEOs, and REOs. DEOs and REOs, in turn, are required to produce monthly, quarterly, and Annual Activity reports and Financial reports covering expenditures data, with all payment receipts and bank statements attached. District reports cover both school and district activities and expenditures; the regional report incorporates aggregated figures from the reports of its constituent DEOs, as well as expenditures information for the REO itself. On a quarterly basis, the General Accounts department of the central GES compiles regional monthly expenditure figures into reports reviewed by the GES Finance department. These reports present aggregated data by main expenditure categories (Personnel Emoluments [1]; Administration [2]; Services [3]; and Capital Investment [4]); by service level (Headquarters Services [141], Regional Services [142], and Handicapped Services [143]); and by school level (kindergarten, primary and basic education, secondary education, vocational-technical education, and teacher education). Individual schools are required to keep accounts and to produce and submit financial expenditures reports on the use of capitation grant funds to their DEO. The previous period s tranche of a school s capitation grant must be justified and approved by the DEO internal auditor before the next tranche can be disbursed by the DEO to the individual school. Some schools can take two to three terms to provide reports, thus must wait for their next tranche (Meeting/interview with DEO West Akim/Finance Officer). Information for Education Policy, Planning, 61

82 By and large, the cycle of reporting and aggregating expenditures data and presenting them in different formats at the different levels of the system is currently a manual process at every level. While a given office may make use of Excel for producing reports, the cycle still involves considerable re-keying of information and even extensive handcalculation of sums, even in otherwise relatively sophisticated offices. These processes are ripe for modernization. The Ghanaian government s commitment to transparency and the requirements of sound fiscal control and efficiency would both be served by more advanced and systematic computerization and the analytical power it affords. As we have seen, the GES Administration and Finance Division also directly collects enrollment figures each term from REO offices to determine capitation grant amounts and to adjust these amounts over time. These data may be received in hand-written form (cf. Figure 2) Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) Because GIFMIS was not operational in the MOE at the time of this study s field work, it is not reviewed in detail here, although is anticipated to offer a response to some, if not all, of the specific recommendations made regarding ActiveX and manual systems. The Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) is currently (August 2011) in the process of adaptation and installation government-wide, with education being a priority sector. The system will combine budget and expenditures data into a single database, ultimately replacing ActiveX and the current manual expenditures tracking system, thereby allowing finance departments to track and compare expenditures against budgets. Certain features of the GIFMIS will eventually be accessible to other ministry departments and down to the district level; users will also be able to examine the data along any number of user-defined dimensions. Ultimately, both central and decentralized offices of Education will be able to input their data directly and have access to a wide range of budget and expenditures reports. 5.4 GES human resources information management Of all government agencies in Ghana, the GES is by far the largest in terms of number of employees. In addition, the sector employs a large number and variety of individuals from other government agencies, as well as through private contractual arrangements at several levels. Efficient management of information on all these personnel emoluments, professional profiles, postings, career paths, benefits, and more is required so that the system is appropriately served while the rights, payments, and benefits due to those providing service are respected. 62 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

83 5.4.1 Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD) The government as a whole maintains an Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD), managed by the Controller and Auditor General Division (CAGD) in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. As the largest agency of the government, GES maintains its own IPPD platform, linked into the overall CAGD IPPD. The GES IPPD system is maintained by the GES Administration and Finance Division. This system is reviewed in Table 9. HRMD offices at central and decentralized offices provide data to the IPPD. They also maintain a copy of these same records at their own level, as well as equivalent information on non-ges employees and contractors working in the sector. The herculean efforts of these offices to organize and maintain these currently paper-based files are also discussed. Table 9. Summary of study findings and analysis of the GES Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD) Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Purpose The I in IPPD stands for Integrated. (Meeting/interview with GES/IPPD Manager). The GES IPPD system integrates personnel information and payroll information, on all employees of the GES. Information on all government workers is controlled by the Controller and Auditor General (CAGD); The IPPD effects all government employee salary payments from central level to individuals bank accounts. The GES IPPD database provides information on every government employee officially working for the GES, including both trained and untrained teachers (pupil teachers). The database holds the biodata of each employee, covering personal demographic data; salary base and benefits information; qualifications, including certificate-bearing inservice training completed; career ladder information, including eligibility for promotion; history of posting and current posting (by school, if a classroom teacher or other school staff); leave history and status; and eligibility for study Content of database: Teachers participation in in-service teacher training that is not certificatebearing is not captured in the IPPD. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 63

84 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations leave, and more. The IPPD database covers both trained and untrained teachers (pupil teachers), and all other government personnel working for the education sector. Data are maintained on each individual employee. A person enters the system as soon as s/he enters a College of Education. Principal level of information Non-GES government staff working in the education sector (such as MOE-HQ direct staff and other agencies; National Youth Employment Program [NYEP] recruits) are captured by other IPPDs, but all are linked to the CAGD central IPPD. (Meeting/interview with GES/IPPD). There exists no equivalent database containing information on nongovernment persons engaged in the education sector. Establish comprehensive HR database for operational use at district level. A separate, all staff database including non-government teachers and other school staff as well as as government employees, building on and extending beyond the content of the IPPD and EMIS databases, could be constructed to facilitate local and central HR managers' work in organizing teacher placement, deployment, career path management, and training. Time frame (from collection to dissemination) Data collection is continuous, with a monthly cycle for data entry and uploading to the central IPPD maintained by CAGD. The volume of material to input, from new employee information to information on transfers, promotions, leaves, and other status changes, consistently exceeds processing time, such that the system operates with a large backlog. At the beginning of each school year there are a particularly large number of new files to process with the integration of College of Education graduates. The large backlog has required the prioritization of cases deemed urgent. The GES IPPD office is constantly visited by DEO personnel officers, doing everything they can to follow up on timely payment, promotions, and other status changes for employees in their districts. There are problems with getting information into the system in a timely manner and salaries of new teachers or teachers with new posts are sometimes a Data collection process Central, district, and regional Education offices, and Colleges of Education send in new employee forms and change orders on paper or fax to the Central GES/A&F/IPPD office, Digitize HR records in stages, starting in a few pilot districts. USAID is supporting the digitization of paper files linked to IPPD, which may be expected to 64 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

85 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations with district-level forms first passing through the regional level. Change orders may be due to promotions, other changes in status, death, change in bank account information, etc. Any revision needs to have DEO approval for staff employed at DEO level, and equivalent approval at other levels. On occasion, a DEO will call with an urgent change, such as the death of an individual. In all cases, the individual s registration number must be known (Meeting/interview with GES/IPPD). Forms received at GES/IPPD are categorized and prioritized prior to data entry. All data entry is done at the central office. month or two late. speed transfer of files for processing, as well as retrieval. Significant technology and capacity building from district to national levels will be necessary, therefore a pilot stage is recommended. Data compilation and storage process New personnel and change data must be processed before the 15th of every to be reflected in payroll. Data must be processed on-line with a direct connection to the CAGD central IPPD database. Because of technological constraints, CAGD informs each agency when they may do data entry. GES needs15 days each month to carry out its data entry, but is often allotted only 6, and sometimes as few as 3 days, to enter all the data for a given month. In general, the GES/IPPD manager considers that the technology and software available to his department are of good quality. However, the server is small, relative to the volume of data, and bandwidth is low, so work is slow. When there are power cuts or slow connectivity due to other sectors working in volume, GES cannot enter data because it cannot access the server at these times. Thus, the backlog of work is considerable and difficult to reduce. HQ cannot monitor and audit every change directly; rather, it must depend on the DEO s monitoring capabilities which are not always effective. The regional office, for its part, only supervises the work of the district office (GES/IPPD manager). Technology and staff capacity upgrading are warranted. Batching of off-line or LAN data entry may be an option, to permit continuous data entry when live connection to the CAGD database is not possible. In principle, the sector s decentralization will include the decentralization of hiring, payment, and overall management of all GES government personnel employed in schools, districts, and regions. At that time, regional, possibly even district-level, IPPD platforms will need to be established and would reduce the central backlog considerably. Data verification process Once data are entered, they are transferred automatically via Internet to the Accountant General (AG), whose office sends back a report after 1-2 days. IPPD then has one day to check the report and send confirmation to AG, upon which the AG returns confirmation to IPPD and sends order for monies to be disbursed into staff bank accounts. If an error is not caught immediately, correction can Decentralization of GES / IPPD data entry, starting with a pilot process in a few districts, would reduce central volume, begin building capacity for inevitable decentralization of teacher recruitment, hiring, and pay, and afford immediate data quality verification since field-based. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 65

86 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations take up to one year (GES/IPPD manager). Matching of EMIS and IPPD teacher information has been attempted (Harvard Institute for International Development), but many gaps were found, and this effort has not been repeated (Meeting with SRIMPR). The GES IPPD offers a rich source of historical information on the status, qualifications, and movements of an important subset of teachers serving the education sector. This database is nonetheless seldom exploited for analytical purposes. Reporting and utilization The IPPD system, to the extent we could determine, does not routinely produce summary or aggregate reports. The principal purpose of the database being the management of individual personnel files and the payment of salaries, the reports routinely produced are on an individual basis and of a confidential nature. Access to information for analytical purposes is possible and has been given, notably, in the course of ESPR preparation. Those external to the MOE must submit a formal request to the Auditor General, while MOE/GES staff may make requests directly, through the GD or the Minister. Personal identifying information is removed before data are released HRMD paper-based systems While the GES IPPD clearly has its challenges, those of the DEO and REO offices, which must manage large volumes of HR records in a purely paper format, are equally if not more daunting. Every teacher placement, promotion, or other change order sent for entry into the IPPD must also be maintained, on paper, at the district office. In a typical District or Regional Education Office, the HRMD, and often an entire storage room as well, is filled with personnel files, held together with toggle-string fasteners and stacked in high piles. Retrieving a specific file can be a challenge. Promotions management is also an important local human resources management task, involving the collection, review, and communication of several pieces of information. After the Work Inspection advertises available promotions, interested and eligible 66 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

87 individuals must fill out a standard application form and prepare a dossier with performance appraisals and certificates, with DEO assistance if needed. The applicant will have a first interview with the Circuit Supervisor, and the application will then move up the chain, with confirmation/validation by the DEO for Sup1 to Sup2 promotion levels, the REO for Senior Sup1 to Senior Sup2 level, or central GES/HRMD for higher levels. When the content of the dossier is confirmed and validated, the respective validating office issues an invitation letter to the applicant, and submits a change order to the GES/IPPD so that the promotion will be entered into the database and any salary change will be made. Given this path, salary promotions may take several months to get into payroll (Meeting/interview with DEO West Akim/Dir & Team). Unlike the IPPD, DEO and REO offices must also keep track of contractual teachers and National Youth Employment Program (NYEP) recruits, as well as GES government employees in placement and transfer decisions. The available teacher data in the EMIS, the SRC, and other, locally developed data collection systems are used to support this work. Districts maintain a nominal roll, covering all teachers in the district and their characteristics. This form, which may vary from one district to another, is collected twice a year, in October and May, to capture mid-year teacher movements. Typically, the DEO also conducts an annual needs assessment to determine vacant teacher posts and teacher training needs. The DEO applies national target pupil-teacher ratios to aim for equity across schools. At the primary level, this target ratio is 35 pupils to 1 teacher; at the JHS level, 25 to 1; at the SHS level, 24 to 1. The DEO training officer uses expressed training needs to define priority training activities for the year. Head teachers receive the forms on their visits to the office to collect mail, and are expected to return the various forms duly filled. District and Regional HRMD, for the most part, manage these data manually. In some cases they may rely on the office s Statistics department to construct and maintain small datasets with the information collected, but such initiatives are entirely local. 5.5 Other education sector approaches to managing strategic and operational information As noted in other sections of this report, a familiar refrain is a lack of confidence in the reliability of EMIS-provided data and information on the part of some GES departments and other stakeholders. This lack of confidence, along with divergent timeframes and a preference for more direct ownership of data, has led several GES departments to conduct their own data collection to obtain the information they need for specific management questions. These collections, for the most part, are not sufficiently structured, maintained, or preserved to serve beyond very specific and time-limited purposes. They also represent a large outlay of effort and resources to collect and process. In the absence of rigorous data validation, there is also no evidence that these approaches result in data that are any more reliable or accurate than those available through the EMIS. At the same time, the very existence of these ad hoc data collections that are designed, if imperfectly, by their Information for Education Policy, Planning, 67

88 direct users, reflects needs for information that are not being adequately served by the larger, more formal systems. As such, they are an expression of what users are looking for that could usefully inform improvements to these larger systems Basic Education Division The Basic Education Division uses DEO quarterly reports and REO summaries sent on by the DG to obtain and analyze local process information, information relating to SRC implementation, and other information not included in the EMIS. But, these reports do not respect a single format, and sometimes key information is missing from a given district, making the reports difficult to process. In addition, the Director observed that fewer than 50% of the districts submit their reports on time. He reflected also on the multitude of reporting templates: from GES, from Parliament, from EMIS, from development partners. Each division is individually making its requests for information from the DEOs, which understandably may get confused with all the different formats. Sometimes the confusion is coming from us. (Meeting/interview with GES/BED Director) Curriculum Reform and Development and Supplies and Logistics Divisions These divisions are engaged in the distribution of textbooks and other educational materials to schools, and as such have a strong stake in the accuracy of data used to carry out this work. CRDD reports that it typically starts with a forward projection of about 5% increase from EMIS data from the previous year, but since districts in the past have complained that the amounts of materials were insufficient, thus CRDD now also crosschecks with each district and will use the district figure if it is higher than projection based on EMIS. Supplies and Logistics also reports collecting own data each term on enrollments, numbers of teachers and classrooms for the purposes of determining numbers of materials and equipment to be distributed Secondary Education Division The SED every year sends Needs Assessment Forms to each region for completion by each secondary school. The form covers infrastructure, equipment, water, and staffing in secondary schools. According to the SED, this information is needed to help establish priorities and identify key issues, since the needs are generally greater than the resources available to address them. SED depends also on the EMIS, as that database is more comprehensive; however, has found it to be outdated or incomplete in coverage of schools. SED and EMIS on occasion compare data, because they both collect information on public and private schools, but even the number of public schools by district may be different across the two datasets. For this reason, the SED conducts their own data collection when it needs exact information, such as in the calculation of the absorbed fees (roughly the equivalent of basic education s capitation grants at the secondary level). 68 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

89 5.5.4 District and Regional Education Office efforts District and to a lesser degree Regional Education offices are in the position both of having to respond to seemingly constant requests for information from higher levels and from development partners, and of needing information for their own purposes. All of the DEO and REO offices visited had developed their own short forms for the collection of school or district (in the case of the REO) information at the beginning of the year. The forms tend to be short (1 to 2 pages) and succinct; an example is provided in Attachment 13. This example, from Dangme West DEO, is a very compact, one-page form, showing enrollments by gender and grade; nominal teacher list with name, rank, staff number, registration number, year posted at station, and subjects taught; number of additional teachers needed; number of excess teachers; sitting places available and needed; source of drinking water and nature of water storage; numbers of permanent and temporary classrooms; number of toilets by gender and for teachers; and number of urinals for pupils and teachers. As noted for Human Resources data, DEO and REO Statistics and Planning Units may construct and maintain Excel-based datasets on their own forms and prepare analytical tables based on these. While variation in the technical capacity of these units is large, the offices visited demonstrate what can be expected with appropriate staffing, training, and basic resources. DEOs make use of Circuit Supervisors to receive and distribute the forms to schools, collect them from schools, and bring them back to the district. Dangme West s completed one-page form, for example, is available in the district by the end of November, and data can be captured for all schools in five days by one data entry person. The EMIS form, in contrast, does not return from schools until February, and typically requires an entire month of data entry (Meeting/interview with DEO Dangme West/SPME). The SRC, discussed in Section 4.3 above, is another example of a potentially important data collection system for local and district use. As described by the Deputy Director General of GES for Access and Quality, the SRC constitutes a living record of the school year, intended to be produced twice a year (1st term and 3rd term). It differs in important ways from the EMIS, which is an event to produce official statistics for the sector as a whole. The SRC, in contrast, is designed as an empowerment tool for the Head Teacher, producing information more quickly and for local operational management purposes. Districts may not yet fully understand its utility, and their capacity to manage the SRC data needs further strengthening. 5.6 Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) census and survey information systems The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) is the key source of production of economic, financial, and social data in Ghana. The GSS is constitutionally mandated to compile analyze, and publish regular data on price indices and inflation, public finance and national accounts, labor and industrial statistics, trade statistics, social statistics, and population statistics. GSS is involved in several international statistical reporting Information for Education Policy, Planning, 69

90 initiatives such as CountryStat, and it fulfills reporting obligations to international statistical agencies on behalf of GoG. GSS data are readily available on the service s website ( or by request. Detailed financial and economic data and summary tables for population, social, labor, and industrial statistics are available. The GSS website also offers access to the National Data Archive (NADA; NADA is a catalogue of all the GSS surveys conducted between 1998 and It allows users to browse, easily retrieve the metadata, and request access to surveys and/or datasets. It also includes a number of key papers that use the datasets. Currently under construction is the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) that will use a REtrieval of DATa for Small Areas by Microcomputer (REDATAM + SP) platform to query and download data from the census database and from household survey databases compiled by the GSS. The IMIS application is being constructed with the help of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and will be a flexible system that enables users to have access to census and/or survey information over the net. Databases currently available from the GSS include the following: Population and Housing Census The 2000 Population and Housing Census has provided the base data for detailed population information and population projections to These projections are used in estimating education access indicators (GER, NER, GAR, and NAR) by region and for the country as a whole. See Table 10 for our analysis of the 2000 Census database system. The 2010 census data is at this writing being collated and processed for publication. Currently, the population count for 2010 is 24,223,431, up from 18,912,079 in Preliminary growth trend estimations based on this census are lower than those used for projections , suggesting that education access indicators for this period have been underestimated. Table 10. Summary of study findings on Ghana s National Population Census Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Purpose To provide a comprehensive count of the population and to provide a description of the population. Basic demographic data was collected but some education questions were collected as well, such as: Currently in school? If Yes what year?, If No, then Ever in school? Content of database: 70 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

91 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Principal level of information Exhaustive census of all household rosters in Ghana. Roughly every 10 years; most recent Censuses were conducted in 2010, 2000, and Projections are estimated between years. About 52,000 trained enumerators canvass small areas for residences and interview a household member to obtain information of all individuals residing in the residence (for 2010 census). Time frame (from collection to dissemination) Data collection process A number of challenges during data collection, including enumerators running out of data collection supplies, inability to access areas due to flooding, and other natural occurrences. Lost or damaged census questionnaires. Data compilation and storage process Data verification process Reporting and utilization Data were compiled and stored at GSS headquarters in Accra. The 2010 census plans to report on GER and NER. The GSS services also have a unit to request inquiry Household and labor surveys The Ghana Statistical Service also carries out a range of standard and ad hoc population surveys. Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS). Five rounds (1987/88, 1988/89, 1991/92, 1998/99, and 2005) of this internationally recognized omnibus survey of household living standards have been undertaken in Ghana. The data are available on request. Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS). Four rounds of the GDHS have been conducted (1988, 1993, 1998, and 2003). The aim is to provide policy makers and planners with detailed information on fertility, family planning, infant and child mortality, and maternal and child health and nutrition. Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS). Ghana is in the second round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey series, a household survey program developed by UNICEF in the mid 90s to assist countries in filling data gaps for monitoring the situation of children and women. The MICS data contain internationally comparable estimates of important social-demographic indicators to monitor the situation of children and women in Ghana. A brief review of these three periodic surveys is provided in Table 11. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 71

92 Table 11. Dimension Purpose Content of database: Principal level of information Time frame (from collection to dissemination) Data collection process Data compilation and storage process Data verification process Summary of study findings on key household surveys conducted in Ghana (GLSS, GDHS, and MICS) Description To compile, analyze, and publish regular data on demographic, social, and health statistics. Mostly health, wealth, social, demographic characteristics. Studies do collect some information about formal education, including coverage and level of education. Household, household roster, and data from selected individuals within the household. Every 3 to 5 years, depending on the survey. Randomly sample census enumeration areas then randomly select households. Training interviewers interview individuals from the selected households. Responses are recorded by the interviewer on a paperbased questionnaire. Data from the questionnaires are entered into the computers using CSPro software by a team of training data operators at GSS headquarters in Accra. It is not clear if there were double-entered data in all the household studies or if there was an editor among the Interview team that checked over the filled out questionnaires for accuracy, completion, and content. Areas For Improvement Ghana does not have a household survey specific for education, although other West African countries (such as Nigeria) have conducted two childeducation surveys. There are inconsistent education questions among the surveys which are then used to estimate the same education indicators. Varying the question could affect the answer and thus create bias education indictors. Household interviewed individuals may not know the most accurate information about a child s age, education level, or current education status. Data are collected at separate months of the year, affecting responses to education questions. Paper-based questionnaires can be difficult to follow, so some information may be skipped or inaccurately recorded. The CSPro data entry system can be challenging for an operator not familiar with the system. This could cause several inaccurate data entries from the paper questionnaire to the electronic data capture. 100% double entry and verification of discrepancies adds to costs and time. Using an editor in the field is costly. Using computers is not always reliable and creates new sets of challenges. Specific Recommendations Conduct a 100% double entry data verification check. Have an editor for all questionnaire teams to check for complete, accurate, and consistent responses to questions. Or use computerized devices with built-in skip patterns, consistency checks, and accuracy checks. 72 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

93 Dimension Description Areas For Improvement Specific Recommendations Reporting and utilization Reports are printed, placed on CDs, and in some cases, placed on the Internet for downloading. Reports are available by request to GSS and the raw data to the survey are accessible. Put all reports online. If raw data are given out, make sure they are accompanied with the appropriate weights and variables needed to properly analyze a complex sample. The data should be accompanied with a document describing the sample methodology and instructions on the proper way to analyze the data. Other surveys. Other surveys available from GSS but not reviewed by the study team also offer relevant information. These include the following: Ghana Child Labor Survey 2001: GSS, in collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment, has implemented a child labor survey, covering 9,889 household and street children from 98 known locations nationwide. The objective of the survey is to provide quantitative and qualitative data on children s activities (economic and non-economic), to determine the nature, magnitude, and reasons for child labor and its effects on children s education, health, morals and normal development. Financial Service Survey 2006: The purpose was to find out households access to and use of available financial services. Job Tracking Survey 2006: The Job Tracking Survey was conducted to provide credible data for effective monitoring and evaluation of job creation programs being implemented by the government. These data were to be used to monitor the progress of the Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (CWIQ) Survey 2003: The objective is to provide reliable data on selected indicators on a timely basis for monitoring changes in the welfare status in various sub-groups of the population. For the first time in any country of the world, the CWIQ has been undertaken at the district level, covering 49,005 households. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 73

94 6. Conclusions and Recommendations We turn now to major conclusions of the Ghana Data Capacity Assessment, and to our recommendations for capacity strengthening, considering each major study question in turn. 6.1 General conclusions Ghana has a tradition of decades of relevant data and information collection and substantial information transparency. The country exhibits a strong appreciation for data, information, research and evaluation, and the sector has embraced evidence-based planning and decision-making. And yet, the quality and efficiency of data collection and management are challenged by turf issues, practical issues, and a certain 'laisser faire tendency that has resulted in duplicated efforts and under-exploitation of usable existing data. Important operational divisions continue to use predominantly paper-based information management systems. Human resource management and even Administration and Finance are among such divisions. Where computer systems are used, they are strictly local, and also central, but with no stable or structured electronic linkages between the two levels. In other words, Ghana's education sector currently displays a disconnect between its ambitions and appreciation for efficient data and information systems to support an evidence-based and results-oriented strategic plan, and the resources and attention it invests to ensuring that these systems operate as envisioned. Districts and District Education Offices constitute a critical link for the operational realization of effective data and information systems. There is considerable dependence on District Education offices for multiple information services (collection and compilation of information from schools for capitation grants, for SRC, for EMIS, and other offices, as well as from individual teachers and other sector employees for HRM, with ransmission of information both upwards and back to schools). And yet, not all districts are equal in terms of stable electricity and internet connections, and staff that are qualified, trained and motivated to move readily toward computer- and internet-based systems. The EMIS is of central importance as a source of information for the sector, and yet it is currently in a precarious funding and technical situation, with a platform that can only be fully maintained with outside technical support, and funding shortfalls that have delayed the availability of critical planning data in recent years. The length of the questionnaire is becoming unwieldy and contributes to delays, and Ministry departments and development partners alike lament inconsistencies, express concerns about EMIS data reliability, and frustration with the level of analysis provided in available reports. While the timeliness of this year's EMIS report and dissemination (May 2011) was an 74 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

95 improvement from (the report for which was delivered in July 2010), the potential for funding and implementation delays is by no means resolved. Concerns about data timeliness and accuracy concerns notwithstanding, the EMIS represents the only comprehensive, standardized system for securely capturing and organizing school-level input data. As such, it would be wise to build from this system and enhance its performance, rather than continuing to permit the inefficient and costly, uncoordinated stream of multiple distinct requests for the same basic information currently emanating from individual GES divisions to the districts. The data capacity assessment study has also found that: efficiency of management, organization, and reporting of information could be improved; coordination of information and research activities, despite substantial efforts, remains a challenge (notably, efficient linking of related data systems, as well as developing and following coordinated research plans); rigorous, objective impact assessments and cost analyses are few; Ministry ownership and capacity to fully maintain, manage, and usefully exploit data and information gathered are improving, but would benefit from further production-learning opportunities with experienced specialists; existing data are in general under-exploited. Access to data for analytical purposes could be better facilitated and oriented. 6.2 How well do Ghana's data systems support and inform the development and implementation of education sector policies, plans, and strategies? For strategic functions (development of policies, plans, and strategies) Well-documented, information-rich sector analysis supported the policy decisions of the 2008 Education Act and the elaboration of Ghana's current Education Strategic Plan (ESP) The plan development process included commissioned studies, SWOT analysis, detailed cost projections and simulations. The ESP itself lays out a thorough monitoring and evaluation plan and indicators to help guide ESP implementation. The MOE and development partners are working to ensure that the annual review process is efficient and evidence-based, focusing on a selected core set of key indicators. The 2011 ESPR offers trend analysis of some national level-indicators, demonstrating positive evolution from previous years in terms of data analysis. Annual and mediumterm planning and budgeting at the national level rely heavily on data from the EMIS system, joined by expenditures projections, current resource allocations, prioritized policy goals, and centrally derived budget ceilings driven by resource allocation formulae. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 75

96 The Education Sector Performance Report, produced by PBME with inputs from all Ministry Agencies and many development partners, now offers a streamlined, wellselected and well-defined set of objectives, with presentation and some discussion of medium-term trends. Considerable and extensive effort is spent each year to collect, organize and review information about the system, culminating in the ESPR and the National Education Sector Annual Review (NESAR). Analysis of trends and other features are becoming more evident in recent and current ESPRs, demonstrating the analytical capabilities of the team. Strong reliance on EMIS for much of this information points to the importance of ensuring the reliability of the EMIS database. Nonetheless, the sector's exploitation of information for policy and planning also displays some blind spots, and the amount of appropriate analysis can best be described as tentative. Planning, for example, makes use of sophisticated cost projections, though one notes a lack of analysis of the relationships between cost, access and quality indicators. The ESP also displays considerable reliance on secondary sources, even though more current data were available in the MOE for primary analysis. Sensitivity around comparative presentations is evidently blocking adequate analysis of disparities between districts, even though this topic is high priority for Ghana. Systematic analysis and transparency are lacking regarding the equity of resources and performances between districts and even between schools, despite Ghana's engagement in poverty reduction efforts and performance measurement generally. There appears to be a reluctance to analyse or present distribution inequities, even though the data available to do so exist. EMIS reports present information on each district, even each school, but do not routinely provide reports showing direct comparisons between entities at the same level. The ESP's list of indicators includes no direct indicators of equity across districts of education access, resource distribution, service delivery, or performance, even though the issue of geographical inequities is a known and targeted challenge. Cost-effectiveness analysis and funding and expenditures tracking are also relatively absent from the research and analysis that have informed the plan and policies of the last ten years. Decisions such as the ambitious kindergarten program would benefit from careful review of their cost implications. Also, while budget preparation is a welldeveloped process, that of systematic, comprehensive (public and private sector) tracking of funding and expenditures at the central level is not yet in place, despite the sector's familiar challenge of government funding shortfalls and delays. Decentralized offices are moving forward with fiscal transparency through posting of budgets, funds received, and expenditures, but this degree of transparency is largely lacking at the central level. More systematic tracking of private as well as public funding sources and expenditures in the education sector, would provide a more complete picture of the sector's potential financial resources, and of the efficiency with which resources are being used. Household contributions, the Ghana School Feeding Program (Ministry of Local Government) funds, 76 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

97 and some sources of development partner funding, are not included among the resources being tracked by the Education sector. While MOE departments have carried out in-house studies, it has proved difficult for the MOE to lead high-quality research studies, due to the nature of research and competing job responsibilities of Ministry staff, Ministry capacity relative to that of entities designed to do research, and the requirements of objectivity. Fortunately, a productive and diverse education and social science research community exists in Ghana, with universities, private firms, and consortia producing useful and relevant research, including firms working in public sector finance and rigorous controlled studies. The Ghana Statistical Service, furthermore, has experience conducting household and labor surveys that can inform the sector on the socioeconomic context and outcomes of education in Ghana. RECOMMENDATIONS ON INFORMATION FOR POLICY, PLAN, AND STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT Undertake more planful, commissioned research. MOE is encouraged to plan for and commission, rather than lead, education sector research studies for greater objectivity, efficiency and credibility as well as comparative advantage, and to make greater use of existing studies. In other words, MOE s more appropriate role would be to commission studies, evaluate their quality, and make smart use of results. Even in this role, MOE needs to have the capacity to develop coherent, appropriate requests for proposals and to review and evaluate the quality of proposals received and of commissioned products. A planful and coordinated research agenda, established regularly and updated annually as part of the NESAR process, would assist the sector to move forward filling critical research gaps. Conduct more relational analysis of available data. Analyses that explore the relationships between inputs and outcome variables (the lack of which was lamented above) are also useful to demonstrate the systemic nature of education and identify areas worthy of further examination and intervention. Making full use of the potential of existing data sets such as EMIS in these ways requires that disaggregated data be available to analysts in a manipulable format. EMIS and other data set owners themselves can also be encouraged to present results through automated reports of a more analytical nature.` Conduct in-depth analysis of disparities in resource distribution across districts. A more thorough exploration of disaggregated data is also crucial. In addition to allowing an examination of gender equity issues, it can flag important disparities in resource provision and outcomes across subpopulations by region, district, milieu, and income level. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 77

98 Carry out analysis of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of programs. Rigorous analysis of the effectiveness of certain costly programs and strategies is warranted. Universal kindergarten, targeted support to deprived districts, teacher study leave, and the Ghana School Feeding program are examples. Study the flow and use of education funding. A targeted or general Education Accounts activity, in which all sources of education funding are identified and tracked through to their utilization and related to outcomes, would help the sector to determine the full picture of resources mobilized for education and their efficiency of utilization, and to identify inefficiencies and opportunities. The GIFMIS program is also promising in this regard, although limited to government sources of funding. Exploiting the program's full potential in producing useful analytical reports is likely to require considerable training and technical assistance, at least in the early stages. Kenya's Open Government Data portal ( offers a good example of government transparency in fiscal as well as other domains For operational functions (implementation) Key data and information systems used for Education sector operations and policy implementation include human resource management and financial management systems, the EMIS database, and a number of ad hoc systems. At the district and school levels, the recently introduced School Report Card system shows promise as a tool for school process management and accountability. The SRC database offers important information for local education managers and the broader community on school process and performance. District and regional operational planning and budgeting build on performance and expenditures data and information from previous years, following a process that parallels national-level planning, with annual reviews, projections, and budget preparation. The Activex system is the repository for resulting budgets, and serves as a basis for the following year's budget exercise. A cacophony of operational data systems results from lack of coordination, and lack of confidence in the EMIS system. The sector's ambitious policy scope and its focus on evidence and performance, while a good thing, has contributed to a need for data practice among operational units of the Ministry, without an accompanying thorough assessment and systematic strategy for optimizing existing data systems and making best use of the data they provide. As a result, overlapping and duplicative information and data systems are created, data requirements are cumbersome, and repeat data are collected with a frequency which is difficult to understand. Divisions' needs for data tend to descend upon districts in an uncoordinated manner, resulting in multiple data collections, reports, and inefficiency of effort. 78 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

99 Further to this rather unsystematic need for data approach is a culture of a need for this week s data. Throughout the Ministry and GES echoed the refrain that EMIS data were static and became available too late in the year for operational use. A number of operational divisions of the GES and development partners alike, expressed a need for current data and proceeded to request them directly from the districts. They also expressed concern about the accuracy of the EMIS data, although did not offer any greater guarantee of accuracy in their own data collections. Typically, the ad hoc systems of other Divisions lack standard verification protocols entirely, and their lack of systematization and automation ultimately increase inefficiencies and risk for error, rather than reduce them. Despite a clear demand for robust beginning-of-the-year enrollment and teacher numbers data from this variety of users, there exists no nationally standardized system for providing this information. Rather, districts have been responding to each request as it arrives, and in some cases, by individually developing their own local data collection systems. While not a problem per se, the situation can result in major inefficiencies and inconsistencies across districts and at the central level. The collection of enrollment data provides a perfect example of the redundancy in current data collection practices. In addition to enrolment data collected for the EMIS database, enrollment data are collected multiple times throughout the school year by different departments. Within the GES, they are collected by Administration and Finance to calculate capitation grants; by SED to calculate absorbed fees for senior high schools; by the Curriculum department to determine requirements for textbooks and other pedagogical materials; and separately by Supplies and Logistics for these same materials as well as school supplies. When such data requests go out, district offices typically collect data from schools, and submit them to the regional office which in turn compiles them for the region and sends them on to the national level. Though data at the districts visited were entered into spreadsheets, only hard copies were submitted to regional and national levels - in other words, data were being re-entered (and sometimes calculated) by hand, at each level of aggregation. Re-entering this information, as opposed to passing along electronic data, requires additional processing time and introduces substantial risk of human error. Furthermore, GES Divisions do not systematically archive the data that they obtain, or share it with other actors. With the exception of EMIS, these data are neither captured in a robust database nor stored in a central location, such that they cannot be easily updated or reorganized to serve needs other than those for which they were specifically collected. The lack of an updatable central database that is accessible at the district level, requires repeated entry of data which introduces inefficiency and possible inaccuracy in resulting data. District Education Offices are critical to operational management and the provision of information on schools, yet their capacity is highly variable. DEO Statistics and Planning offices, assisted to strengthen their data systems and staff capacity for analysis Information for Education Policy, Planning, 79

100 and local data verification and management, are in many respects best placed to provide data that are as current and accurate as possible, given their proximity to schools. It is no surprise that the sector depends heavily on District offices for multiple information services (collection of information, transmission of information in both directions. Nonetheless, the 170 districts have highly variable technical abilities, amplitude, and appreciation for EMIS data usage, not to mention access to adequate equipment, stable energy and internet connectivity. Apart from the EMIS data entry system, DEOs have no standard IT systems to collect and store data. Districts rely on their own technical staff to develop ad hoc datasets. No wide area network exists for transmitting data securely or systematically from the DEOs to regional or national Ministry offices. The sector still relies to a surprising degree on paper-based and manual data transmission even on the part of critical departments. Schools' operational funding, through capitation grants (basic schools) and absorbed fees (secondary schools), is based on termly current enrollment figures, demanding that these data be provided three times a year. Despite the importance of correct numbers for this distribution, verification appears to be left to districts' and regions' discretion for the most part, and the process of gathering these numbers is entirely manual. Expenditures tracking is also a predominantly manual process, involving duplicative data entry at each level of aggregation, despite the large potential for human error in this process, not to mention inefficiency. Human Resources Information Management in the GES presents a particularly striking example of massive amounts of data and information that continue to be managed manually with paper files, despite GES' status as the country's single largest government employer. The Human Resources Management Division at national and local levels requires data on teachers to determine vacant posts; provision schools at the beginning of the year; plan, monitor, and track deployment and training; plan inspections, and manage leaves and promotions. DEOs are currently collecting teacher information three times a year by way of the post-provisioning audit at the beginning of the year as well as by the nominal roll, in addition to collecting detailed teacher information through the EMIS school census. The planned digitization of records, with USAID funding, will be an important step forward; it also represents a complete transformation of the way GES HRMD staff across the country have operated for decades. The central GES IPPD, an impressive machine, is nonetheless seriously backlogged, with paper change orders coming in daily from the field. Evidence of objective selection or impact monitoring of schools participating in the Ghana School Feeding Program is lacking. It is not clear whether EMIS (which collects information on vulnerable children) or other empirical data are used as a basis for prioritizing schools' participation in the Ghana School Feeding Program. No national formula exists for choosing the most needy schools to participate in the program (or in other poverty-targeted programs, such as provision of school uniforms, for that matter). Similarly, the study team found no evidence that EMIS, SRC, or other data were being 80 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

101 used to monitor the possible impacts of the school feeding program, such as increased student enrollments, attendance, or performance in school. RECOMMENDATIONS ON INFORMATION FOR POLICY IMPLEMENTATION AND OPERATIONS Promote use of existing data where adequate and appropriate. Estimations or projections from previous year's data are adequate for some, indeed many, operational purposes. In fact, Administration and Finance and Curriculum Divisions of the GES indicated they made such projections on a regular basis, to be adjusted as current-year information became available. In these cases, the untimeliness argument against EMIS data loses its strength, although accuracy remains a consideration. Continue capacity strengthening of DEOs as critical links for all information systems. Areas for strengthening include staff technical skills; stable energy source and internet connectivity; and development of HR, finance, school support and inspection, and other computerized information systems complementary to the existing EMIS program. Carry out HR records digitization in stages, piloting in a few districts (including some relatively disadvantaged or deprived' districts) to determine not only required configuration of a digitized records management system (database and file storage and retrieval design, programming, required equipment), but also to determine the full extent of staff training that will be needed to ensure staff ability to manipulate the system effectively. Initial resistance is likely to be high. Pilot decentralized IPPD input centers. The 2008 Education Act will eventually result in the decentralization of hiring and firing. The sector would do well to pilot a decentralized IPPD input center, linked to the digitization system and, if possible, to the central IPPD, to begin preparing for generalized devolution of these responsibilities to the district level. Create an all-staff education sector HR database directly updatable by districts. A simple human resources database, accessible in each district, could be made to be updated only when teachers' and other staff data changed. This type of system could replace the collection of detailed teacher data from schools several times a year, to capture information on teachers who have left the system, moved to a different school, or changed their personal details. A more complex, nationally integrated human resources database, while costly to implement, would alleviate the need to collect teacher data from schools at all, other than to track teacher movement or to update personal details. Ground School Feeding Program decisions in data. EMIS data could be used both to investigate the appropriateness of the choice of schools in the school Information for Education Policy, Planning, 81

102 feeding program and to monitor the impact of the school feeding program in terms of increasing enrollment, attendance, and performance. For the selection of schools, a methodology similar to the Resource Allocation Formula could be established to prioritize schools with the most vulnerable children for povertyintervention strategies. Verifying school feeding impacts would require statistical methods beyond simple indicators, to extract the contribution of the school feeding program from other factors that may be affecting improvements in student enrollment, attendance, and performance. Establish a standard, start-of-school-year snap census. A brief, standard snap school census administered on the 10th day of the school year, containing only essential information (student enrollments by grade level and gender, teacher numbers, key infrastructure and materials in stock), and processed in a matter of days may provide districts and line departments with the data they need at the beginning of the school year. Already, individual districts have developed practical forms of this type that could serve as the basis for a more standard form Special focus on EMIS The EMIS school census and database constitute the principal source of information used in the preparation of annual and medium-term plans. As a key source of data and information for the sector, the reliability of data and information provided through the EMIS system is of great importance. The Ministry's Planning, Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation (PBME) office expressed overall satisfaction with the quality of EMIS data to support plan development, monitoring, and evaluation. While some anomalies and inconsistencies were noted, their impact on strategic planning was not believed to be great. Some important strides have been taken in recent years, with the decentralization of EMIS data entry and the increasing capacity of DEO statistics and planning staff to manipulate the data at their level. The EMIS program is an SQL-based application that has many potential functions, including the ability to easily export the data to a spreadsheet format which could then be used for basic inquiries. In part responding to perceptions that EMIS is a bottom-up process with little information returning to the local levels of government, the EMIS team has shown initiative, creating the Basic School Report for return to the school and community level. The EMIS system can also serve a number of operational functions as well as strategic functions. To do so effectively, however, will require greater rapidity in the availability of EMIS results, stronger data verification routines and documented accuracy, authorization for decentralized offices to make use of provisional EMIS data for operational management purposes at their level and strengthened DEO staff capacity to do so, and a greater readiness to encourage and facilitate access to and use of the EMIS data by other sector managers and analysts. 82 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

103 As we have seen, the timeliness, reliability, completeness, and accessibility of EMIS data and reporting continue to be called into question by central GES managers as well as development partners, leading to multiple parallel data collections. Development partners also lament the limited transparency and availability of disaggregated data in a form that would encourage secondary analysis. Standard EMIS reports present data and indicators in a number of different formats, but without providing trend analysis in much thoughtful depth, or analysis of differences in inputs or performance between regions or districts. As in many other countries, enrollment rates are notoriously difficult to estimate on the basis of EMIS enrollment numbers and population census projections, particularly at subnational levels of aggregation, and yet the EMIS reports continue to present them. Completion rates may also be inconsistently estimated. EMIS reports present information in the form of preprocessed indicators for the most part, with often little analysis of apparent anomalous information. Users have been frustrated that, without access to the base data underlying some indicators, they cannot readily check or recalculate indicators directly. It has been argued, The EMIS issue is a turf issue... If we want to improve the EMIS, we have to first resolve the problem of ownership. In other words, schools and GES divisions, which are not directly answerable to the SRIMPR, may tend to show greater responsiveness to the GES, and have greater confidence in their own Agency's information. Changing these tendencies and perceptions will require a number of actions. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REVITALIZING EMIS Improve availability of information in useful forms. Improved reporting can be achieved through judicious design and programming of automated reports that are based on user demand. While programming will require an initial investment, the returns in terms of transparency and accessibility of useful information may be great. Provide greater transparency and accessibility of the EMIS database. Improved transparency and accessibility will help boost potential users' confidence in the database and their exploitation of it in the long run. The EMIS Unit is encouraged to create an easy-to-use EXCEL-based pivot table interface, linked to a locked version of the data, that would allow users to conduct their own specific inquiries. Ministry leadership can help, by demanding and supporting such transparency efforts. Continue to strengthen DEO and REO Statistics staff capacity. DEO and REO Statistics and Planning officers, represent critical ambassadors for EMIS at decentralized levels. As such, their training in data processing, basic analysis, and system maintenance need to be high priority for the EMIS Unit at the center. DEO and REO initiatives to manipulate and analyze EMIS data should continue to be encouraged, generalized and supported. Retaining a standardized and centralized EMIS database does not mean that decentralization of data analysis and reporting is thereby compromised. With the central EMIS database and structure as the core, programs can be designed so that district and regional offices can generate key Information for Education Policy, Planning, 83

104 standard reports in a provisional form for internal purposes, as well as export data to Excel and perform other queries. Stabilize secure government funding for EMIS activities, while pursuing more cost-effective means of recuperating entered data. Funding for EMIS activities needs to be secured in a timely fashion every year, in order for the program to have the resources it needs to effectively support its critical functions. At the same time, more secure and cost-effective methods of recuperating entered data need to be put in place, with reduced physical recuperation and greater use of internet-based data transfer where possible. Streamline the EMIS school census. In addition to introducing a rapid snap census of essential data at the beginning of the school year (see previous section), EMIS is encouraged to reduce the length of the principal school census questionnaire, with careful consideration of data relevance and analysis utility, as well as transfer of some questions to a sample-based or less frequent survey collection process. Improve data accuracy through strengthened data verification routines. EMIS needs to strengthen its basic data verification routines, primarily at the District level. These include master file creation/maintenance, school report verification, data entry verification, and automated computer checks for consistency and accuracy. The EMIS unit at the central level also needs to be more transparent as to data processing, imputations, or projections that are being done at the national level. Systematic application of year-on-year analysis, and routine juxtaposition of key data collected through EMIS with equivalent data collected by GES / Administration & Finance for capitation grant distribution, with flagging and investigation of important anomalies, are also advised. District publication of the EMIS Basic School Report for local feedback and data verification. The EMIS Basic School Report could serve as an accuracy check system that provides data back to regional, district and school system for verification that the data used are accurate. Having such a system could greatly increase both the accuracy of the data as well as people s confidence in the reliability of the data. This would help to eliminate a great deal of the redundant data collection. Strenuously pursue 100% coverage of schools in the EMIS database. Comprehensiveness of the EMIS database is critical for operational management. Districts need to maintain and use current school rosters to manage the data collection process and strenuously pursue 100% response rates from schools on the school census form. Speed transmission of EMIS program updates and data. EMIS needs to implement less time-consuming and costly approaches to distributing the updated EMIS program to district offices and collecting data once data entry is complete. 84 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

105 Ideally, a wide-area network or dedicated internet mailbox system could be introduced, with site visits only to districts experiencing specific difficulties in using this system. 6.3 How well do Ghana's data and information systems provide a basis for coordinating and aligning external assistance and development partners activities in support of education? The present study has not attempted to duplicate the significant work carried out by the Education Sector Working Group to assess sectoral coordination and alignment and to define measures to strengthen these processes. This work is described in the Ghana Education Coordination Strategy Retreat report (MOE & USAID, 2010); readers are referred to this comprehensive report. Below we offer highlights of our study team's observations, confirming the central conclusions of the coordination strategy report. The Education Strategic Plan and the annual ESPR / NESAR process provide an effective overall framework for orienting external assistance. In addition, the Ministry of Education actively engages with and invites the substantive participation of development partners in the preparation of the NESAR and in medium-term and annual operational plan development. Education Sector Working Group meetings jointly chaired by the PBME and the rotating DP co-chair (currently DFID) even during the relatively stressful NESAR preparation period, were substantive, informative, collaborative, and well organized. A number of development partners are contributing significant funding and technical assistance to improving data, information and research capacity in Ghana's education sector. USAID and other US government agencies, DFID, Unesco Institute for Statistics. ADEA, World Bank loans, Unicef, and others have directly supported EMIS development and implementation, other information systems and infrastructure, and/or research efforts, including DFID's support to three international research consortia in which Ghana is an active partner. At the same time, there were indications that obtaining thorough and complete development partner information on the progress of projectized assistance could be a challenge for the Ministry, particularly during the preparation of the annual Education Sector Performance Report. Some partners may not be able to respond readily to the Ministry's reporting templates and timeframes, due to their own reporting calendars and systems. In addition, while a comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation plan for the ESP along with the reporting templates and timeframes exists, PBME does not maintain a central database for the systematic and comprehensive collection, archiving, updating, and reporting of projectized assistance. The ESPR is reconstructed entirely manually every year. If efficiencies could be gained in the assembly of routine monitoring and progress information for the report with the support of automation, PBME staff and other Information for Education Policy, Planning, 85

106 contributors to it could focus more energies on analysis, evaluation, interpretation, and collaborative design considerations. RECOMMENDATION ON DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR COORDINATING AND ALIGNING ASSISTANCE TO THE SECTOR Establish an Education Intervention Coordination Dashboard. It is understood that the Activex budgeting database and the new GIFMIS program may have relevant functionalities that could be used to create tables presenting education sector plan activities and interventions by funding source. Such tables could serve as a starting point for a coordination dashboard of interventions and assistance in the Education sector. However these systems are, at best, only as good as the information they contain, and will require setting up data entry and report design in such a way as to permit the generation of such reports. Tracking technical progress and the evolution of indicators alongside planned activities, budgets, and funding sources would be another important feature to set up in such a system. Geographic information could also be added, to produce visual maps of the location of interventions. A web-accessible system, into which program managers and development partners could directly upload the required information and view resulting tabulations and graphics, would be particularly efficient. Discipline on the part of all partners to provide the data required are key to the success of such a system; the more useful and accessible the reporting tables and graphics, the more likely that contributing stakeholders will also do their part. (Note, a similar recommendation is made in the Coordination Retreat report, MOE & USAID 2010, p. 12) 6.4 How well do Ghana's data and information systems and capacities support and inform the development and implementation of USAID s five-year strategy? The data and information system strengths and weaknesses for the sector as a whole, summarized in Section 6.2 above, are relevant for USAID's five-year strategy as well. The discussion here highlights how Ghana's country systems specifically support the Agency's sharpened focus for basic education on primary school reading instruction, management systems, accountability and community engagement to support reading, and outcomes, in line with the new (2011) global Education Sector Strategy. The government's full-scale roll-out of the National Languages Program (NALAP) constitutes a major initiative to transform language and literacy instruction and learning in Ghana. The implementation of NALAP and its effectiveness are of critical interest to USAID, as it is within the NALAP context that USAID (and other development partner) assistance to pedagogy and learning in primary education must be situated going forward. Given this context, ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of this 86 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

107 program are key, all the more so because a recent, limited formative evaluation suggests strongly that the program as currently being implemented is not producing the anticipated improvements in children's learning (NALAP formative evaluation, EdDataII, 2011). EMIS, the National Education Assessment, and the School Report Card data collection systems could provide part of the picture for ongoing NALAP evaluation, although each of these systems has its limitations for this purpose. The current EMIS school census focuses primarily on structural aspects which are essential but not sufficient to understand what is going on in schools and classrooms. Data reliability, accessibility and timeliness of EMIS, as discussed above, will also need strengthening. The NEA measures only English and maths abilities at the end of 3rd and 6th grades in two year increments, and thus while offering learning outcome measures of primary education does not illuminate early and intermediate progress of children as they work on reading skills in national languages with the gradual introduction of English. The NEA system, to meet USAID standards, will also need to increase the scientific rigor of its sampling, measurement instruments, data collection and analysis. School Report Card data, while not designed to capture NALAP or reading instructionspecific activities, can offer a useful window on school and teacher practice and process generally, as well as on the degree of community participation and engagement in school management, performance monitoring and accountability. The secondary analysis of SRC results to inform USAID strategy would represent a departure from the intended purpose of the instrument as a local feedback and accountability mechanism, however, so care would need to be taken to communicate the rationale to stakeholders and to preserve the integrity of the instrument. In short, EMIS, NEA, and SRC existing systems can inform and support USAID's basic education strategy in Ghana,as well as the effective implementation of NALAP (in which USAID will undoubtedly continue to participate), but these systems alone, even if strengthened as indicated, will not be sufficient. Studying NALAP implementation in order to track and improve its effectiveness will require a specific program of measurement instruments, administered in a regular cycle. We have noted earlier the considerable breadth of research activity and capabilities in Ghana's education research community, although shortcomings in organization, coordination, and variable quality exist. This community can be mobilized to inform USAID's strategy. The Teacher Community Assistant Initiative (TCAI), designed and implemented by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and incorporating a rigorous randomized trials study of four variations of a school- and community-based support program for slower learners, constitutes a noteworthy and locally-based model for a program within a program study approach. Ghana's newly established ( ) National Inspectorate Board (NIB) and National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) are and will be engaged in developing school management, curriculum, and learning assessment standards and indicators for Information for Education Policy, Planning, 87

108 Ghana. As such, in addition to PBME, GES, SRIMPR, and the local research community, these new agencies will be important actors in building country systems for measuring baseline, progress, and impact of USAID's next education strategy in Ghana. 6.5 How well do Ghana's data and information systems produce data to report on progress in the education sector, including evaluating and reporting on the outcomes and impacts of USAID assistance? This section presents specific conclusions of the study on the adequacy of of Ghana's data and information systems for program evaluation and reporting, beyond those already covered in Sections 6.2 and 6.4 above. Our recommendations for this topic and for 6.4, already made in relation to other study questions, are shown in the summary table of recommendations provided in the next section Sector-wide performance and performance standards Ghana's formal support for effective decentralization and increased accountability and transparency in the sector presents a real opportunity for establishing responsible government practice, greater circulation of information on sector performance, and more attention to results and outcomes. GES' Basic and Secondary Education Division Guidelines are currently being developed or updated. Serious attention to evaluation and accountability toward the broader public are demonstrated at the national level through the ESPR / NESAR process, even though broad public participation in these events tends to be limited to direct sector stakeholders. Other intended national mechanisms for public accountability, such as use of the Internet, have not yet been institutionalized in a functional manner. The new NIB, NTC, and NCCA agencies represent an important opportunity for strengthening evaluation of education, by constructing and implementing transparent, robust quality standards for the sector. The development of basic and secondary education school standards is being spearheaded by the NIB; new quality and performance standards for teachers (NTC) and for student learning assessment and evaluation (NCCA) are also anticipated. The results of the NCCA work, for example, is anticipated to help upgrade ASU-type efforts, and give them higher visibility. It will be important to ensure that these high-level commitments are accompanied by effective communication for optimal integration into the system, adequate funding, and followthrough on implementation. There is also considerable private-sector and NGO engagement in the study of sector performance, producing a wealth of research on education in Ghana, albeit primarily for specialists, that is by and large public. Development partners and the STAR-Ghana fund, with its express mission to support independent research and other initiatives that bring critical issues to the table for policy dialogue in education among other sectors, constitute important enablers of this work. 88 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

109 6.5.2 Evaluation of classroom process Ghana s need for continued research can be summed up in the following observation from the NIB Chief: Numbers [of children in school] are growing but the quality of education is going down. And as noted by the Director of Secondary Education, while student performance indicators are important, they are indicators only. To understand what is going on, and why performance is what it is, sector authorities need to study process as well. More efforts such as IPA s Teacher Community Assistants Initiative (TCAI) mentioned above, are needed to offer the sector both rigorous methodological demonstration and meaningful results with concrete applications Evaluation of student learning Student learning assessment is carried out through NEA and TIMSS (with 2011 being an assessment year for both studies). The importance of NEA as the sole national-level systematic evaluation of primary grade learning, warrants more attention to quality and provision of adequate resources to this program. NEA offers information on system performance at national and regional levels only. In terms of formal student outcomes, WAEC data are being exploited less than they could be, with access to raw scores data for in-depth trend analysis rarely granted. Common understanding of the nature and utility of certain performance information is not yet in place; normalized stanine scores of the BECE, SSSCE, and WASSCE offer limited utility in observing performance trends. The BECE examination offers an opportunity to assess district-level performance; however the available data are relative only to current-year national performance. Analysis of trends over time in absolute degree of curriculum mastery, for example, would require BECE raw score analysis, to obtain non-relative measure of student performance Evaluation of community engagement and accountability Decentralized accountability and community engagement constitute a work in progress. Decentralized offices (DEOs and schools) visited were seen to post budgets, expenditures, and claimed to hold meetings in which financial information was presented and discussed. Simple school-level internal accountability mechanisms in the form of performance tracking charts support teacher performance management. Accountability practices are defined for the local level and in some degree evident, with posting of budgets, capitation grant funds received, term expenditures and performance, the SPAM / SPIP process, SRC and SEA. However, there are concerns that the SEA is not sufficiently rigorous and its purpose has been deflected, and that the SRC and SPIP / SPAM processes are still dependent on outside funding and are not everywhere being carried out. Efforts are needed to develop understanding, engagement, and practices of community engagement and participation in the School Report Card as, first and Information for Education Policy, Planning, 89

110 foremost, an instrument for local empowerment of school communities, rather than as a source of information for inspection, sanction, or school-on-school comparison. 6.6 Summary of recommendations of the Data Capacity Assessment Table 12 provides a summary of recommendations of the Data Capacity Assessment, showing their relation to principal study questions. Table 12. Summary of recommendations of the Data Capacity Assessment RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT (and Development Partners as appropriate) Undertake more planful, commissioned research. Conduct more relational analysis of available data. Conduct in-depth analysis of disparities in resource distribution across districts. Carry out analysis of the effectiveness and the costeffectiveness analysis of programs and interventions. Study the flow and use of education funding. Promote use of existing data where adequate and appropriate. Continue capacity strengthening of DEOs as critical links for all information systems. Carry out HR records digitization in stages, piloting in a few districts. Pilot decentralized IPPD input centers. Create an all-staff education sector HR database directly updatable by districts. Developing and implementing education sector policies, plans, strategies Coordinating and aligning assistance to the sector Supporting USAID / Ghana s fiveyear education sector strategy Evaluating and reporting on education sector progress 90 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

111 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT (and Development Partners as appropriate) Ground School Feeding Program decisions in data. Establish a standard, start-of-schoolyear snap census. Improve availability of information in useful forms. Provide greater transparency and accessibility of the EMIS database Continue to strengthen DEO and REO Statistics staff capacity. Stabilize secure government funding for EMIS activities, while pursuing more cost-effective means of recuperating entered data. Streamline the EMIS school census. Improve data accuracy through strengthened data verification routines. District publication of the EMIS Basic School Report for local feedback and data verification. Strenuously pursue 100% coverage of schools in the EMIS database. Speed transmission of EMIS program updates and data. Establish an Education Intervention Coordination Dashboard. Developing and implementing education sector policies, plans, strategies Coordinating and aligning assistance to the sector Supporting USAID / Ghana s fiveyear education sector strategy Evaluating and reporting on education sector progress Information for Education Policy, Planning, 91

112 92 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

113 Attachment 1: Scope of Work: Education Data Capacity Assessment Pilot Country Effort Ghana 01 April 31 July BACKGROUND "The purpose of this task order is to enable USAID missions in a larger, congressionallymandated three-country pilot program to assist the local education group (LEG) to assess data capacity in-country that will allow the LEG to better use data to inform education sector policies, strategies, quality assurance monitoring, and results reporting." "A key part of the emerging paradigm for sound development in the field of education, building on the Paris Declaration on Donor Effectiveness, is to have multi-year national education plans 'owned' and continuously monitored by host country..."local Education Groups" (LEG - i.e., host country governments, civil society and other key stakeholder groups in each country. Donors then align their assistance against these plans and they may also support the development of the plans and monitor progress on an ongoing basis for accountability and transparency. "The main objective of the pilot country effort is to support the development, implementation, and monitoring of five-year strategic plans in three countries representing different points along the continuum of developing country contexts. The hypothesis is that concentrated emphasis on the support for the development and monitoring of the overall education plans for each country will result in lessons learned that may be applicable for USAID education funding in similar country contexts in the future. "The key emphases of this task order are to (1) provide technical resources to help generate consensus among LEG stakeholders on a common dataset needed for education sector decision-making, and then (2) assess the capacity of the country's institutionalized systems to collect, process, analyse and use this dataset for planning and management, including reporting of outcome and impact level results. Attention will be given to data related to the objectives and activities prioritized by the LEG as well as sector-wide information requirements. If the capacity assessment in any of the three countries identifies data gaps or needs, USAID assistance can be offered to the LEG to identify options to close them..." Excerpted from "GSA Contract No. GS-10F-0097L, USAID Task Order 11 Information for Education Policy, Planning, 1-1

114 Thus, the Education Data Capacity Assessment is intended to help the Agency determine how well a country s own data systems serve the following purposes: Informing and supporting the development and implementation of the country s education sector policies, plans and strategies, Providing the basis for coordinating and aligning external assistance and development partners activities in support of the education sector, Underpinning the development of USAID s five year country strategy, and Producing data to report on progress in the education sector, including evaluating and reporting on the outcomes and impacts of USAID assistance. Assessments are being carried out in three countries, Ghana, Mozambique and the Philippines. The present scope of work pertains to the implementation of the assessment in Ghana. 2. OBJECTIVE The purpose of the assessment is to evaluate the data needs of the education sector in Ghana, as well as the capacity of Ghana s data systems to produce the information necessary to develop, implement and evaluate the progress of education sector plans. The assessment will also examine the extent to which data systems in Ghana can (or do) inform USAID s development of a five year strategy, including permitting USAID to monitor and report on the impact of its education sector programs and projects. The assessment will also produce a country profile that presents a synoptic view of the status of education sector policies and plans, summarizes the availability and use of data and data systems, and indicates potential areas for investment to support improved databased planning and reporting. The assessment in Ghana will be national in scope. 3. ACTIVITIES A small team comprised of RTI education policy, planning, and management analysts and a statistician will be mobilized to complete the Data Capacity Assessment in Ghana. Team members will focus on student achievement information; financial information; human resource management information; administrative and school management information (EMIS and other); and "demand-side" information such as household survey and labor survey studies. and policy and planning, with particular focus on basic education. They will carry out the following activities: Information for Education Policy, Planning,

115 2. Review the Data Capacity Assessment framework methodology developed for the task order as a whole, and develop the team strategy for applying the framework to guide data gathering in the field. 3. Background research and gathering of relevant documents prior to travel to Ghana, including reviewing and extracting from the documents information pertinent to the data capacity assessment. 4. Plan the team s data gathering strategy, including determining of specific responsibilities for each team member. 5. Travel to Ghana to conduct meetings with government officials, stakeholders, international development agencies and other institutions or individuals as identified and determined in the course of preparation and fieldwork. 6. Maintain detail notes and write up and organize information gathered according to the Data Capacity Assessment framework. 7. Following the trip to Ghana, fill remaining information needs through review of documents or other sources. 8. Prepare a report of findings including a country data capacity profile. The report will include: an evaluation of the data needs of the education sector in Ghana, and the capacity of Ghana s data systems to produce the information necessary to develop, implement and evaluate the progress of education sector plans, with special emphasis on basic education. discussion of the extent to which data systems in Ghana can (or do) inform USAID s development of a five year strategy, including permitting USAID to monitor and report on the impact of its education sector programs and projects. a country profile that presents a synoptic view of the status of education sector policies and plans, summarizes the availability and use of data and data systems, and indicates potential areas for investment to support improved data-based planning and reporting. 9. Provide recommendations for improving the Data Capacity Assessment framework, information gathering strategy, or other aspects of the methodology, and standardizing it as an approach that can be applied in other countries and contexts. 10. Provide recommendation s and scope of work inputs to put in place a mechanism (BPA) capable of providing technical resources to the sector in closing information gaps and supporting more evidence-based planning, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 1-3

116 The provisional report of findings and recommendations will be produced at or soon after the conclusion of the Ghana fieldwork mission. The final version of the report will be produced after validation of the provisional report by key parties. 1-4 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

117 Attachment 2: Documents Consulted Type Code Document Title A GOG AND MOE STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS, OPERATIONAL PLANS AND PERFORMANCE REPORTS A GOG & USAID (2010). Towards a Ghana Education Coordination Strategy - The Education Sector Coordination Strategy Retreat (Facilitators: Dr. Leslie Casely-Hayford, Marian Tadefa-Kubabom; Reporters Akabzaa Roland, Thomas Quansah, Matilda Hettey) A GOG (2006).The GPRS II (Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy ), simplified version. A GOG (2009). Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government of Ghana for the 2010 fiscal year presented to Parliament on Wednesday, 18th November, 2009 By Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. A GOG (2009). Education Act, 2008 (Act No. 778). A GOG (2010). The coordinated programme of economic and social development policies, Presented by H.E. Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, President of the Republic of Ghana to the 5th Parliament of the 4th Republic, December A GOG (2011) Budget highlights A MOE (2010). Education Sector Performance Report. A MOE (2010). Education Strategic Plan 2010 to 2020, Volume 1 (Policies, Strategies, Delivery, Finance) A MOE (2010). Education Strategic Plan 2010 to 2020, Volume 2 (Strategies and Work Programme) A MOE (2010). Education Strategic Plan , Volume 1, Annex A (Structure & Organization) A MOE (2010). Education Strategic Plan , Volume 1, Annex B: Education Sector SWOT analysis (November 2008). A MOE (2010). Education Strategic Plan , Volume 1, Annex C: Decentralization Transition Plan - Overview A MOE (2010). Education Strategic Plan , Volume 1, Annex D: Financing of the Education Strategic Plan , Document for Discussion A MOE (2010). Education Strategic Plan , Volume 1, Annex E: Performance Indicators and Targets Information for Education Policy, Planning, 2-1

118 Type Code Document Title A MOE (2010). Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, D1 MOE (2010a). Annual Education Sector Operational Plan (AESOP), (Set of Excel spreadsheets) D1 MOE (2010b). Annual Education Sector Operational Plan (AESOP), D1 MOE / GES / CRDD / ASU (2010a). Annual Report on Assessment Services Unit. D1 MOE / GES / CRDD / ASU (2010b). Report on 2009 Administration of National education Assessment Primary 3 and Primary 6, English and Mathematics A MOFEP ( ). Guidelines for the budget preparation. A NDPC (2009). Guidelines for the preparation of the sector monitoring and evaluation plan under the medium term development policy framework, A NDPC (2010a) annual progress report on the implementation of the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II), simplified version. A NDPC (2010b). Medium-term National Development Policy Framework: Ghana shared growth and development agenda (GSGDA), , Volume 1: Policy Framework. Accra: GOG / NDPC. A NDPC (2010c, November). Guidelines for the preparation of Sector Medium-Term Development Plan, A NDPC (2010d, November). Guidelines for the preparation of District medium-term development plan under the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA I) A NDPC (2010e, December). Guidelines for the preparation of the district monitoring and evaluation plan under the medium term development policy framework, A NIB (2011). National Inspectorate Board: Helping to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools (pamphlet). A PBME (2011). Proposed indicators for ESPR 2011 (informal communication). A WAEC (2010). Report on the conduct of the April 2010 Basic Education Certificate Examination. D2 POPULATION STATISTICS, EMIS AND RELATED INFORMATION D2 GSS (2010) Population and Housing Census (form). D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (Sep 2010). Report on Basic Statistics and Planning Parameters for Basic Education in Ghana 2009/ Information for Education Policy, Planning,

119 Type Code Document Title D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (2010) Basic Education Profiles - Basic District Profile / 2010 School Year Data. D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (2010) Basic Education Profiles - BASIC National Level Enrolment Data. D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (2010) Basic Education Profiles - Basic National Profile / 2010 School Year Data. D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (2010) Basic Education Profiles - Basic Regional Profile / 2010 School Year Data. D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (2010) Basic Education Profiles - District Level Enrolment Data. D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (2010) Basic Education Profiles - Regional Level Enrolment Data. D2 SRIMPR / EMIS (2010). EMIS School Profile D6 GES / Supplies & Logistics Division (n.d.) District Statistics form 1 D3 MOE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION D3 GES / IPPD (n.d.). Personal record of members of the Ghana Education Service (Teaching and non-teaching personnel) (Basic information form). A CRDD (2010). National literacy acceleration programme. D4 MOE STUDENT AND SCHOOL PERFORMANCE INSTRUMENTS A GES (February 2010). School Report Card Implementation Manual D4 EQUIP 2 (Jan 2007). Ghana Basic Education Comprehensive Assessment System (BECAS) Final Report D4 MOE / GES (2010). School Report Card: Implementation Manual. D5 MOE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS A GES (n.d.) Guidelines for the distribution and utilisation of capitation grants to basic schools. D5 Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) (2011). Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS). Website material. D5 Ghana News Association (GNA) (16 March, 2011). Ghana and devt partners sign $60 million grant agreement. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 2-3

120 Type Code Document Title D5 GIFMIS Project Secretariat (2011). Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) - Presentation to the Finance & Governance Thematic Sub Working Group on Education D5 GIFMIS Project Secretariat (2011). Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS): Presentation to the Finance & Governance Thematic Sub Working Group on Education, April 29, 2011 D6 DEO AND REO DOCUMENTS D6 GES / DEO Dangme West (2010a). Annual District Performance Report, 2009/10 Academic Year D6 GES / DEO Dangme West (2010b). Contracts awarded in. D6 GES / DEO Dangme West (2010c). District Education Sector Annual Review for Stakeholders D6 GES / DEO Dangme West (2010d). School Data collection sheet 2010/2011. D6 GES / DEO West Akim (2010a). Special statistical information (obtained from the special report). D6 GES / DEO West Akim (2010b). School statistics as at. D6 GES / DEO West Akim (2010c). School Report Card 2009/10 (example) D6 GES / DEO West Akim (2011a). Annual District Performance Report 2010 / D6 GES / DEO West Akim (2011b). Financial statement for the Year Ended 31 December 2010 D3 GES / REO Greater Accra (2010). Teaching Staff Data E EVALUATIONS OF THE EDUCATION SECTOR AND ITS INFORMATION SYSTEMS E (2011). Education issues brief: Policy Issues and recommendations presented at the pre-nesar dialogue, "A stakeholder analysis of evidence to prioritize policy action". E Abadzi, Helen (2007). Absenteeism and Beyond: Instructional Time Loss and Consequences (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4376). Washington, DC: The World Bank. E Akyeambong, Kwame et al. (June 2007). Access to Basic Education in Ghana: The Evidence and the Issues (Country Analytic Report). Accra: CREATE-Ghana E Akyeampong, Kwame (April 2010). 50 Years of Educational Progress and Challenge in Ghana: Creat Pathways to Access Resesarch Monograph No. 33. Sussex: CREATE E AlHassan, Seidu & Vincent Adzahlie-Mensah (Sep 2010). Teachers and access to schooling in Ghana. CREATE pathways to access Research Monograph No. 43. Sussex:CREATE. 2-4 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

121 Type Code Document Title E Ananga, Eric (jan 2011). Dropping out of school in southern GHana: The push-out and pull-out factors (CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph No. 55. Sussex: CREATE. E Cambridge Education (2006). Education Management Information System: A Short Case Study of Ghana. Published by InfoDev. E Casely-Hayford, L, Roland Akabzaa & Thomas Quansah (August 2009). Strengthening the chain of accountability to improve quality and performance in Ghanaian primary schools (The Synthesis Report): Link Community Development (LCD) External evaluation. Accra, Ghana: Associates for Change E Casely-Hayford, Leslie (2011). The Political Economic Analysis of Education in Ghana. Accra: STAR Fund. E Chien-Li Chung (August, 2009). GRAIL Project: Ghana School Report Card Findings Including EMIS Support Assessment. Washington, DC: AED. E CREATE (March 2008). Educational Access in Ghana: Country Policy Brief. Sussex: CREATE. E CREATE (Sep 2010). Complementary education and access to primary schooling in northern Ghana: CREATE Ghana Policy Brief 2. E GES / BED / AUDEM (2011). Result of Document Review on Annual District Education Operational Plan and Annual District Performance Report. E IBP & SEND-Ghana (2009). Partnering to make budgets work for the people. E IIECL and L. Diane Mull (February 2011). Ghana Baseline Study Report: World Cocoa Foundations Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Educational Solutions (ECHOES). E IPA (2011a, January). Evaluation of financial education and savings programs in primary and junior high schools: Baseline report. E IPA (2011b). Teacher Community Assistant Initiative - Baseline Survey Report - DRAFT. E IPA (2011c). Website information on IPA's 10-year study of the impact of scholarships in SHS E Lall, Marie (March 2007). A Review of Concepts from Policy Studies Relevant for the Analysis of EFA in Developign Countries: CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph No. 11. Sussex: CREATE. E Lawson. A. et al. ( ). Joint Evaluation of Multi-Donor Budget Support to Ghana, Based on OECD-DAC methodology, Final Report. Volume One: Evaluation Results and Recommendations on Future Design and Management of Ghana MDBS (Andrew Lawson, Ghimah Boadi, Ato Ghartey, Adom Ghartey, Tony Killick, Zainab Kizilbash Agha and Tim Williamson) E Little, Angela (Aug 2010). Access to basic education in Ghana: Politics, policies and progress: CREATE Pathways to access Research Monograph No. 42. Sussex: CREATE. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 2-5

122 Type Code Document Title E PBME / M&E Unit (2011, January). Policy Evaluation Studies in GES Public Basic Schools (Underperforming Schools and Tracking of Poverty). E Rolleston, Caine (2011).Fosterage and Access to Schooling in Savelugu-Nanton, Ghana E Rolleston, Caine et al. (Nov 2010). Educational Access in Ghana: Country Research Summary. Sussex: CREATE. E RTI / EdData II (April Draft version). Task Order 7, NALAP Formative Evaluation Report, Ghana. E TMG / Etsey, Kafui et al. (June 2009). Review of Basic Education Quality in Ghana: Basic Education in Ghana: Progress and Problems. Washington DC: USAID. E Traore, Oury (2006). Commonwealth Education Fund: Terminal Evaluation. Document submitted to ActionAid Ghana. E Wereko, T.B. and Cletus Dordonoo (2010). Ghana - Effective Delivery of Public Services: Focus on Education - A discussion paper (Prof. T.B. Wereko and Prof. Cletus Dordonoo) - Review by AfriMap and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa E World Bank (Feb 2010). Improving Equity, Efficiency, and Accountability of Education Service Delivery. Washington, DC: The World Bank. E Ye, Xiao and Sudharshan Canagarajah (2002, May). Efficiency of Public Expenditure Distribution and Beyond: A Report on Ghana s 2000 Public Expenditure Tracking Survey in the Sectors of Primary Health and Education. World Bank Africa Region Working Paper Series No. 31. Washington, DC: The World Bank. B USG DOCUMENTS B USAID (2007, September). President's International Education Initiative: Expanded Education for the World's Poorest Children - Ghana Fact Sheet. Washington, DC: USAID. B USAID (2011). Congressional Basic Education Sub-Earmark five year strategy development & implementation - initial report for Ghana - January 31, 2011 B USAID Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (2011, January). USAID Evaluation Policy. Washington DC: USAID. B USAID Education Policy Task Team (2011, February). Opportunity Through Learning: USAID Education Strategy Washington, DC: USAID. B USAID / Ghana (2010). Action Memorandum to the Mission Director for Approval of New Activity: Data management and communication strengthening (DMCS). B USAID-Ghana (2011a). Concept Paper: USAID / Evaluate. B USAID / Ghana (2011b). USAID - GHANA Program Overview - Education (elements from USAID-Ghana website) 2-6 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

123 Type Code Document Title B USG (2010a). Ghana USG Programs by Type and District Jan 27 (Excel table file) B USG (2010b). Joint USG Education Strategy Meeting - November 18, 2010 (Meeting notes). B USG (2010c). USG Activities in Support of the Government of Ghana s Education Strategic Plan (ESP): B USG (2010d). USG Pilot Strategy Meeting September 14, 2010 (Meeting notes). C OTHER DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS - PROGRAM & PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS C DFID (2011). Ghana :Working towards a future without aid C IPA-Ghana (2010). The Ghana Teacher Community Assistant Initiative (TCAI) C MOFEP & UKaid (2010). Joint Press Release 21 October 2010: UKaid provides 12 million for Ghana s public financial management system (MOFEP website) C OECD (2005, 2008). The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action. C IPA (2011). Website information on IPA and THP community "epicenters" study C IPA (2011). Website information on IPA collaboration with THP in Ghana C STAR-Ghana (2011). Website information on STAR-Ghana F DOCUMENTS RELATED TO THE DATA CAPACITY ASSESSMENT SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY F RTI / EdData II (2011a). EdData II: Data capacity assessment draft framework. Washington, DC: RTI / EdData II. F Crouch, Luis et al. (2011). Education Information and Education Policy and Planning in Mozambique. Washington, DC: RTI / EdData II. F DeStefano, Joe et al. (2011). Information for Education Policy, Planning and Management in the Philippines. Washington, DC: RTI / EdData II. Information for Education Policy, Planning, 2-7

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125 Attachment 3. Persons Contacted ENTITY NAME AND TITLE CONTACT INFORMATION First Meeting Ministry of Education - Central Office MOE Policy, Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PBME) Emelia Aning, Director (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May MOE Policy, Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PBME) Kwame Agyapong Apiadu-Agyen, DP Coordinator Cell:(0) , Tel:(0) , Fax: (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May MOE Policy, Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PBME) Eva Oberg, ODI (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May MOE / PBME Planning Unit Bernard Ayensu, Planning Officer (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May MOE / PBME Planning Unit Elliot Lamptye, Planning Officer (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May MOE / PBME Planning Unit Ernest Otoo, Assistant Planning Officer Ernest: , [email protected] Mon 09 May MOE / Statistics, Research, Information Management and Public Relations Division (SRIMPR) Dr. Dominic Pealore, Director (0) , [email protected] Tue 10 May SRIMPR / EMIS Samuel A. Okang, Programmer / Analyst (0) , [email protected] Tue 10 May SRIMPR / EMIS Herbert Gorman, Computer Analyst / Programmer (0) ; [email protected], [email protected] Tue 10 May Information for Education Policy, Planning, 3-1

126 ENTITY NAME AND TITLE CONTACT INFORMATION First Meeting SRIMPR / EMIS Thomas H. Coleman, Coordinator (0) , (0) , [email protected] [email protected] Tue 10 May SRIMPR / EMIS Albert Ebo Sey, Statistician / IT (0) , [email protected] Tue 10 May SRIMPR / EMIS Edward Dogbey, Statistician / Programmer (0) , [email protected] Tue 10 May SRIMPR / EMIS Verom Nuamah - Kitin, Statistician/Researcher (0) , [email protected] Tue 10 May Ghana Education Service - Central Office Ghana Education Service (GES) Dr. Charles Y. Aheto-Tsegah (Dr. Tsegah), Deputy Director-General [email protected]; [email protected]; ; ; Mon 09 May GES Administrative and Finances Division Mr. Chris Koramoah, Financial Controller ; [email protected] Tue 17 May, 10 am GES Human Resource Management and Development (GES) Mr. Samuel Manteaw, Director ; [email protected] Tue 10 May GES Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD) M. Inkoom, Head [email protected] Wed 18 May GES Basic Education Division Mr. Stephen Adu, Director ; Tue 17 May, 9 am GES Curriculum Research and Development Division Sarah Agyeman-Duah, Director (0) , [email protected] Wed 11 May GES Secondary Education Division Mr. Edwin L. Ocansey, Deputy Director [email protected] Wed 18 May GES Teacher Education Division Mr. E.O. Asare, Director ; ; ; [email protected] Tue 17 May 3-2 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

127 ENTITY NAME AND TITLE CONTACT INFORMATION First Meeting GES Teacher Education Division, National INSET Unit Mrs. Evelyn Owusu Oduro, Programs Coordinator ; Tue 17 May GES Examinations Division Mr. Godwin Addo, National Examinations Coordinator ; Thu 12 May GES / CRDD / Assessment and Statistics Unit Isaac, Unit Head Thu 12 May GES Inspectorate Division, Science Antwi Aning, Science Officer (0) , [email protected] Thu 12 May GES Inspectorate Division, Maths Anthony Sarpong, Mathematics Officer (0) , [email protected] Thu 12 May GES Special Needs Education Division Mrs. Rosamond Blay [email protected] GES / Supplies and Logistics Beatrice Zalia Ali, Acting Director (0) , [email protected] Wed 11 May Ghana School Feeding Programme Honorable SB Adamu ; ; Fri 20 May 2011 Other MOE Agencies West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Mrs.P.G.A Ayesu, Head of National Office (0) , [email protected] [email protected] Tue 10 May West African Examinations Council (WAEC) A.N. Teye-Cudjoe, Principal Public Affairs Officer (0) , [email protected] Tue 10 May WAEC Computer Services Division John A. Avade, Head of Computer Services Division (0) , [email protected] Tue 10 May National Inspectorate Board (NIB) Dr. George Afeti, Chief Inspector of Schools (0) , [email protected] Wed 11 May Information for Education Policy, Planning, 3-3

128 ENTITY NAME AND TITLE CONTACT INFORMATION First Meeting Decentralized Education Offices and Schools District Education office of Dangme West, Greater Accra Region Mrs. Freda KOASI, Director Thu 12 May 2011 Administration and Finance Office, Dangme West DEO Finance Officer Thu 12 May 2011 Supervision & Monitoring Division, Dangme West DEO Mr. Samuel Narteh Thu 12 May 2011 Statistics, Planning, and M&E Division, Dangme West DEO Mr. Joshua Asare-Nyadu, Coordinator ; Thu 12 May 2011 Statistics, Planning, and M&E Division, Dangme West DEO Mr. Solomon Quaye, Statistics Officer ; Thu 12 May 2011 Dodowa Presby Basic 2, Dodowa, Dangme West District Mr. Charles Odoom, Head Teacher ; Thu 12 May 2011 Municipal Education Office (MEO) West Akim (Eastern Region) Stephen Kofi Nti, Municipal Education Officer ; Tue 17 May 2011 MEO West Akim, HRMD Amoa Samuel Daico, Head of HRMD Tue 17 May 2011 MEO West Akim, Inspectorate Division Khalid Sunlayen Laballele, Deputy Director Supervisor of Inspections Tue 17 May 2011 MEO West Akim, Administration and Finance Office Edward Konadu, Public Relations Officer ; Tue 17 May 2011 MEO West Akim, Administration and Finance Office Richard Yeboah. Head of Finance and Administration Tue 17 May Information for Education Policy, Planning,

129 ENTITY NAME AND TITLE CONTACT INFORMATION First Meeting MEO West Akim, Statistics and Planning Office Timothy Oketey, Head of Statistics and Planning Tue 17 May 2011 MEO West Akim, Human Resources Management and Development Division George Yankyera (Personnel Officer); Sylvia Quaynor (Personnel Officer 2); P.M. Sasu (Training Officer). Tue 17 May 2011 Regional Education Office (REO) of Greater Accra Mrs. Ernestina Afosah Anim, Director Fri 20 May 2011 Regional Education Office (REO) of Greater Accra EMIS statisticians Sulemana Yusif; Kean Appiah; Kofi Mensah Fri 20 May 2011 Other Ghana Government Structures Ghana Statistical Service Dr. Philomena Nyarko (Deputy Government Statistician, Operations Unit) Cell: (0) Office: (0) Thu 12 May & follow-on Development Partners USAID-Ghana Education Office Robert (Bob) Davidson, Outgoing Chief Education Officer Cell: (233) Tel: (233) Fax: (233) , Mon 09 May USAID-Ghana Education Office Marisol Perez, Incoming Chief Education Officer WDC USAID-Ghana Education Office Luis Tolley, Education Advisor Cell: (233) (0) Tel: (233) Fax:(233) , Mon 09 May USAID-Ghana Education Office Emmanuel Mensah-Ackman, Education Officer Mon 09 May Information for Education Policy, Planning, 3-5

130 ENTITY NAME AND TITLE CONTACT INFORMATION First Meeting USAID-Ghana Education Office Meredith Fox, Education Officer Tel: , Mon 09 May Department for International Development Dr. Rachel Hinton, Human Development Adviser Cell: ; Tel: (0) ; Mon 09 May (DP meeting) Department for International Development Yvonne Agbesi, Deputy Programme Manager (0) , Mon 09 May (DP meeting) DFID, Africa Division (UK) Kim Bradford Smith, Senior Statistics Adviser Cel: +44 (0) ; Tel: +44 (0) ; Fax: +44 (0) ; Wed 18 May (telecon) United Nations Children s Fund Hiroyuki (Hiro) Hattori, Chief of Education Cell1: (0) Cell2: (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May Japan International Cooperation Agency Emi Nishihata, Assistant Res. Rep. (0) , [email protected] Japan International Cooperation Agency Mama Owusu, Education Advisor (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May (DP meeting) Mon 09 May (DP meeting) World Food Program Francis Sarpong Kumankuma, Programmer [email protected] Wed 11 May Engineers Without Borders Christian Euler, Junior Fellow (working out of the Northern Regional Education Office) ; [email protected] May 30th (via ) Engineers Without Borders Dan Boland [email protected] May 31th (via ) Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Angela Arnott. Coordinator for Working Group on Education Management and Policy Support (WGEMPS) unit ; [email protected] June 2nd (via ) 3-6 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

131 ENTITY NAME AND TITLE CONTACT INFORMATION First Meeting Nongovernment Research Entities Associates For Change; and Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty (RECOUP) Dr. Leslie Casely-Hayford, Principal Development Consultant & RECOUP member /3; ; Fri 13 May 2011 Institute for Poverty Action - Accra Ghana Jessica Kiessel, Director; Suvojit Chattopadhyay, Deputy Director ; [email protected] Thu 19 May STAR-Ghana: Strengthening Transparency, Accountability and Responsibility in Ghana (No. 12 Obenesu Crescent; DTD 58 East Cantonments, Accra) Lawrencia Adams, Programme Manager and Team Leader ; ; ; [email protected]; [email protected]; Fri 20 May 2011 STAR-Ghana: Strengthening Transparency, Accountability and Responsibility in Ghana Amidu Ibrahima TANKO, Deputy Programme Manager and Technical Support Group ; ; ; [email protected]; [email protected]; Fri 20 May 2011 Persons Met During 9 May Development Partners Meeting Only IBIS-Denmark Zakaria Sulemana, Northern Regional Program Director for Education (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May (DP meeting) World Bank Eunice Ackwerh, Senior Education Specialist , [email protected] Mon 09 May (DP meeting) World Food Program Nguyen Duc Hoang, Head of Programme Unit (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May (DP meeting) WUSC Akwai Addae-Boahene, Country director (0) , [email protected] Department for International Development Kanya Raj, Intern (0) , [email protected] Mon 09 May (DP meeting) Mon 09 May (DP meeting) Information for Education Policy, Planning, 3-7

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133 Attachment 4: Ghana Data Capacity Assessment: General Study Questions to Be Pursued Through Document Review, Interviews, and Data Set Review 1. Priority Setting: What data are used in setting sector goals and objectives (international benchmarks, absolute targets, internal comparative data, etc.)? How realistic are goals and what evidence is used (if any) to inject realism into goal setting? How open is the process of priority setting? Are government data relied on? Do stakeholders bring data to the process? What role do politicians play in setting priorities? What data (if any) do they rely on? What roles (if any) do external partners play in priority setting? What data do they use, and do they tap directly into country data or use pre-filtered donor databases (such as UIS or EdStats)? 2. Policy Formulation and Plan Development: What data provide the basis for timing/sequencing of plans? How realistic are plans and what evidence (if any) is mustered to justify proposed targets and timing? How are tradeoffs evaluated and negotiated? Who is involved, what data (if any) are used? How are plans formalized and specific targets communicated? How are external efforts incorporated into plans? 3. Allocation and Alignment of Resources: Is sector budget developed within the context of a medium term expenditure framework? Does a national education account exist? How are resource envelopes for the sector and for priority areas within the sector determined, and how accurate and hard are they? Information for Education Policy, Planning, 4-1

134 How are development partners brought into the sector financing dialogue? What information is used to determine different partners levels, modalities and areas of financing? How are sector financing arrangements determined (general or sector budget support, pooled or non-pooled funding, alignment of bilateral projects, on or off budget external funding, etc)? How are decisions reached regarding allocation of funds to decentralized levels? What data determine the splits between centralized financing and decentralized financing? Are funding formulae explicit and what data are they based on? 4. Management and Monitoring of Implementation: How is implementation tracked? What data are available on use of resources, inputs, outputs, and outcomes? How are implementation and spending data linked, and linked to plans and targets? How are data on externally funded projects incorporated into implementation monitoring? Are data on implementation progress made public? Are other actors/stakeholders involved in monitoring implementation? What data (if any) are used for management accountability? 5. Review of and Reporting on Progress Are reviews/reporting regular and are they publically committed to? Who participates? How much public accountability is included in the review/reporting process? What data are brought to the review/reporting process and by whom? What role does civil society plan (if any)? Are data generated as part of regular information systems or are special surveys/data collection efforts need for regular review/reporting? What outcome and impact measures (if any) are used? What is the relationship between external actors reporting requirements and the internal review/reporting process? How much do development partners rely on in-country data systems v. their own project or special data collection/generation? Are priorities/plans adjusted based on review findings? 4-2 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

135 6. Data and information management system questions Is there an information policy for the education sector? Is such a policy part of the overall government information policy? What evidence is there that the information policy is applied/adhered to? Are there standard definitions of key data objects and is there evidence of those definitions being systematically applied? Are there reviews of the quality of data? Are there annual data publications (statistical yearbooks, indicators books, published analyses)? What evidence is there of demand for/use of data publications? How established is the sector information system (EMIS)? To what extent is the information system decentralized? Are there standards for inter-operability (or at least standard definitions) between decentralized systems? How regular and current is reporting between decentralized levels and the center? How are sector information systems linked (if at all) to other key government information systems (e.g. human resources; payroll)? What roles do development partners play in supporting systematic data availability? Do existing projects or programs address specific data gaps? How are development partner data needs fulfilled? To what extent are data requests from development partners harmonized? To what extent is information shared among government, civil society and external partners? 7. Data quality questions Are data reliable, timely and regular? Are data cross-checked against each other? Are they disaggregated by district/region to stimulate comparisons? Are they disaggregated by urban/rural, gender, levels of poverty, etc.? Are standard codes used across data systems (e.g. for students, personnel, schools, districts)? Do data permit evaluation of trends over time? At what levels are data compiled and aggregated? What level of granularity is maintained in data? Are they shared back down from those levels? Information for Education Policy, Planning, 4-3

136 Are national systems accessible at different levels region, district, school? Are sub-divisions consistent or are there ways to map education data to other jurisdictions? Are data reported up as a by-product of local use? 4-4 Information for Education Policy, Planning,

137 Attachment 5: Policy Cost Matrix Information for Education Policy, Planning, 5-1

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139 Attachment 6: Sample ADEOP Forms District Expenditure Forms for Zonal Meeting Information for Education Policy, Planning, 6-1

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151 Attachment 7: Sample MTEF Forms Information for Education Policy, Planning, 7-1

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155 Attachment 8: Sample Completed MTEF for One District Information for Education Policy, Planning, 8-1

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159 Attachment 9: Sample of Capitation Grant Expenditure Information Provided by Schools Information for Education Policy, Planning, 9-1

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165 Attachment 10: Sample Monthly Expenditure Report for One Region Information for Education Policy, Planning, 10-1

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167 Attachment 11: Sample School Report Card Information for Education Policy, Planning, 11-1

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171 Attachment 12: Sample EMIS School Report Information for Education Policy, Planning, 12-1

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173 Attachment 13: Sample DEO Form for Collecting School Data Information for Education Policy, Planning, 13-1

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