Ghana’s Education Response During The COVID-19 Crisis: EdTech To The Rescue?

Children in Ghana (including 9.2 million pre-tertiary and 500,000 tertiary students) are among more than 1.5 billion learners globally whose studies have been impacted by school closures. The Ghanaian Government indefinitely closed public and private schools within days of the country recording its first COVID-19 case on 12th March 2020, ultimately including final-year high school students who were initially allowed to continue attending school. Schools were midway through the 2019/2020 academic year when the pandemic disrupted teaching and learning.

The closure of schools was followed by the deployment of teaching via television, radio, and the internet, with varying degrees of uptake by children in urban and rural households, and learners living with disabilities. This case study uses a political economy framework to analyse the government’s education technology strategy in times of crisis and the respective uptake by teachers and students, particularly marginalised groups. In addition to an extensive review of policy documents and media publications, 10 key informant interviews were carried out with educators, civil society actors, parents and public education officers.