The abolition of school fees especially at the basic education level has been adopted by many countries as one of the key policy interventions for influencing education outcomes. In 2004, Ghana adopted a school fees abolition policy, the Capitation Grant (CG), to spur the attainment of universal access to the basic education goal under the Ghana Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) and meet its Millennium Development Goal(MDG) targets (2 and 3).

Since the introduction of the CG in Ghana, many studies have been conducted by government, development partners, civil society and other stakeholders in education. These studies have however focused largely on the effects, impact and outcomes of the policy on school enrolment, completion rates and quality outcomes. Not much research has been done to track the disbursement, management and use of the CG. The CG would only be successful in ensuring universal basic education if resources allocated to the grant reach beneficiary schools and at the same time used for its intended purpose.

This study therefore tracks possible leakages and inefficiencies in the disbursement and usage of the CG in thirty (30) public basic schools in Ghana. In particular, the study provides empirical evidence on the leakage (if any) of financial resources allocated to the CG by tracking disbursed resources from the Ghana Education Service (GES) through to the District Education Units and finally, at the service delivery points (schools). More importantly, the study examined the usage of the grant at the beneficiary schools and assessed the robustness of the transparency and accountability measures for the appropriate and efficient usage of the funds.

Policy Recommendations

1. The spending pattern of CG must be evaluated to determine whether it is conducive to improving education outcomes as anticipated by the policy.


2. The relationship between allocation, equity and improved quality outcomes in the education sector must be assessed.
3. Policy measures that will gradually align education policy outcomes from enrolment explosion as a result of CG and other supportive programs to quality outcomes must be formulated and implemented.


4. The fixed amount CG per pupil per year must be reconsidered. Equity and need factor should be the basis for calculation.As it is now, it might in the long run widen the social inequality gap because schools with larger population will have more and will be able to meet basic essentials than smaller schools.


5. Education sector policy makers need to examine enrolment periods of basic schools to establish cutoff points to aid early submission of school and district enrolment records to the GES and the Ministry of Finance for release of the CG funds. Discussions with officials at the district levels and the GES indicate that continuous enrolment often leads to over population in the schools and lesser funds from the Ministry.


6. The CG implementation guidelines call for timely release of the grant to all districts and schools. This must be strictly enforced to make the policy effective.


7. Serious efforts should be made to simplify the SPIP forms to reduce the workload on heads of schools as some heads do not access the CG simply because the amount of paper work is a deterrent.


8. There is the need for continuous monitoring support and improvement in the internal management and implementation processes of the grant, particularly reviewing and revising the implementation guidelines to meet changing trends.


9. Given that the dynamics of power between school heads and SMCs members sometimes tend to be collusive, PTAs could be made grant signatories to increase demand for transparency and accountability by actors outside of the formal management structure of schools.


10. To have more lettered and technical persons on SMCs to improve their effectiveness and efficiency in the discharge of their oversight responsibilities, the GES should consider establishing SMCs for a cluster of schools within a particular area just like the current grouping of schools into circuits for effective supervision.


11. Serious policy efforts should be made to gradually computerize the administration of the CG at the district and school levels to ensure proper records keeping, effective reporting and monitoring. Meanwhile, there should be a policy to sanction heads of districts and schools who fail to keep up-todate and accurate records.


12. The GES should make it a policy that Banks demand copies of SPIPs vetted and approved by district education offices before releasing CG funds to schools.


13. The Ministry of Finance and GES could publish the release and disbursement of funds to the districts in the daily newspapers and on their respective websites for each district to know how much has been released to it by the ministry. District Education officials will then account for the funds received to their respective Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies. Assembly Members can also follow up to schools in their various localities for monitoring and verification of receipts.


14. Education sector policy makers and stakeholders need to undertake cost impact analysis of the Capitation Grant scheme vis-à-vis other education sector policies such as the school feeding program, free school uniforms etc. to assess the long term viability and financial sustainability of these programs.


15. Finally, the fact that challenges to education seems indifferent to the policy interventions is problematic and calls for critical policy review to align policy with expected outcomes. Indeed, the recurrent nature of some of the challenges to education as identified in the study communities raises concern about the long term impact ofsome national efforts at achieving Education for ALL (EFA) goals in Ghana by 2015.