Achieving Quality Education At SHS In Ghana: Let’s Not Forget The Lessons From The QUIPS Intervention (Part 2)

The QUIPS programme which began in 1997 was a multi-level intervention programme as part of the FCUBE reform which was initiated by the Government of Ghana (GoG) after weaknesses in the implementation of the 1987 educational reforms under the military regime of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC). It involved 367 schools across the country with 3 schools chosen from 110 districts in Ghana.

Introducing the FCUBE policy, the GoG had set up the educational review committee prior to 1997 made up of different stakeholders and government officials. After engaging in discussions with stakeholders, the committee looked at different policy options as part of the policy-making process and made the policy decision at an all-round table conference, one of which was to improve teaching and learning across basic education in Ghana.

Ensuring stakeholders are part of the policy-making process helped to drum up political support during the implementation process. By enshrining the FCUBE into the Ghanaian constitution, it gained legitimacy and political support and hence became attractive for bilateral and multilateral donors such as the USAID to fund aspects on its implementation through interventions such as the QUIPS quality intervention. The GoG through the Ministry of Education (MoE) partnered with UASID and implemented the policy of improving basic education through a school-based teacher-development project under the QUIPS programme.

Due to the large scope of this programme, two other implementing partners were involved – Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Improving Learning through Partnerships (ILP). ILP oversaw the programme at the southern part of Ghana while CRS oversaw the intervention in the northern regions. In order to ensure that the QUIPS initiative was embraced with enthusiasm as some experts claim, the CRS created awareness within the communities through advocacy by harmonizing community relations positively towards the programme. This positively stopped any local politician from standing up against the programmes. Thus pupils and their families were aware of the objectives and the potential benefits to the communities according to USAID. The ILP then focussed on training the school teachers including head teachers and administrative officers from the district education office (DEO). The programme designed and managed by QUIPS consultants with GoG priorities, carried out context analysis in trying to understand learning in the Ghanaian context. These consultants initially worked with district-teacher support teams who later became responsible for the professional development of teachers in terms of their lessons, planning and classroom instructions and ensured ownership of the programme by teachers.

Experts in education policy warn that no matter how well anticipated, policy implementation will always throw up surprises. They advise that one way to use such a surprise to improve policy outcomes is to design the implementation in stages and or to conduct a well-designed pilot study before full implementation. The QUIPS programme was initially designed and implemented in stages. Schools were chosen in each of the 10 regions with control groups selected for evaluative purposes. Each group had intervention for a two-year period involving six instructional workshops within two years, with one residential instructional period within the first year with the following objectives: demonstration lessons, gender equity issues, community involvement, experimental learning, self-study, self-learning, a practical orientation and an appreciative enquiry approach. During the two years this intervention was conducted six times over 2-3 days in each of the selected schools and each year several schools and communities were selected to take part in this intervention. To evaluate the success and the impact of QUIPS on pupil achievement, control schools were chosen within each of the communities where the QUIPS schools were selected.

The final evaluation of the QUIPS project was carried out six months after the last implementation but the results from the impact assessment don't appear anywhere in any literature. The QUIPS project appeared to have died a natural death after its impact assessment was carried out.

USAID's own final evaluation in 2005 highlighted strengths such as better lesson plans, and more committed teachers as well as delivering much better lessons and practice compared to non-QUIPS teachers. Head teacher supervisions had increased from the DEO and the QUIPS schools were seen to be better managed compared to the controlled schools. In effect, the evidence suggests that the QUIPS schools were more effective during the project period compared to the controlled schools and such impacts were desired and hoped for. There were also improved community relationships with schools even though it was not always the case due to lack of leadership within some communities and in cases where head teachers showed poor commitment to educate their pupils.

The lack of funds from the GoG at the initial stages drafted in the USAID and an overall project assistance of $51million dollars and non-project assistance of $6 million was spent and hence funding doesn't seem to have been a problem. However, the GoG may not be able to afford to replicate this project on a wider scale without development partners. Incidence of poverty had a direct impact on student attendance and achievement. The evaluation found in some low-performing QUIPS schools indicated that children came to school hungry and unable to learn well even though there were some school feeding programmes in some communities.

Some other issues that affected the impacts and overall outcomes of the project were high teacher turnover within the QUIPS schools; lack of toilet facilities and school buildings; lack of textbooks and lack of trained teachers in both QUIPS and non-QUIPS schools, as well as other competing donor programmes. Some teachers were drawn towards other donor projects due to the monetary benefits such as allowances for attending workshops, which were deemed to be higher than allowances from the QUIPS project. This was also evident in DEO supervisions to non-QUIPS schools, often very brief whilst longer at QUIPS schools and hence skewing the nature of supervision and support in favour of the QUIPs project.

Even though some of the impacts were feasible, full impacts were not accomplished due to some of the issue discussed above and exceptional efforts would be needed to replicate this project in other circumstances. It is also clear to some extent that the project lived politically as it proved to be effective in some respects, and socially as seen by the involvement and embracement within some of the communities where the project was implemented.

Conclusion
Implementing quality educational reforms in Ghana are expensive and a difficult task as evident from the QUIPS project. Issues such as poverty are closely linked to the lack of providing quality education that affects the achievement of students. Lack of trained teachers, poor supervision by district education office staff and poor community involvement in the provision of education contribute to overall school ineffectiveness and poor outcomes for students as evident from this intervention. Furthermore, poor attitude of teachers and head teachers has a negative impact on pupil outcomes. It is clear from the QUIPS project that where teachers are motivated, supported and trained well they can deliver better lessons. And when head teachers are supported and monitored well, they provide better support for staff to improve school performance and when DEO staff have the means to supervise and monitor and are trained well, schools become more effective. In addition, when the whole community gets involved in their children's education, the children attend school and subsequently do better at school.

Moving forward, in designing quality intervention programmes at the SHS level, the following points must be considered carefully:

1. The GoG should continue to engage development partners on improving the quality of basic education and to harmonize their work in Ghana.
2. The GoG should foster private–public partnerships to help address the issue of poor quality at SHS level.
3. Ongoing training and recruiting of well-trained staff should continue to be a priority of the GES
4. The GoG must ensure quality interventions are specific, strategic, creative and innovative and especially targeted at numeracy and literacy so as to drive overall improvements across all subjects.
5. Policy impact assessments must be considered in subsequent policy cycles.
6. The GoG to re-think a nationwide language policy with an extensive reading strategy.
7. The inspectorate division at GES must be revamped and should together with school management committee ensure effective supervision at both basic and SHS levels.
8. The GoG must ensure it plans for quality interventions well to avoid a situation where parallel programmes are run in the same locality at the same time.
9. Literacy tests for teachers during training to be made more comprehensive and to include an oral aspect if possible.
10. The GoG must plan for the gender, disability and special educational needs implications of the free SHS policy so as to reduce further inequalities in education in Ghana.

11.The school feeding programme must be extended to have a much larger coverage as students' ability to learn are seriously affected by their nutritional needs.

By Kwaku Bimpeh
The writer is an education and international development specialist, UK

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