The Executive Secretary of Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), Kofi Asare, has strongly criticised Ghana’s slow pace in fully enforcing compulsory basic education, warning of its impact on child development and national progress.

Mr. Asare argued that ongoing hesitation in policy implementation is fueling increasing truancy and school dropout rates, particularly in the northern regions of the country.

A recent census conducted across 20 districts in northern Ghana revealed alarming levels of children absent from school, despite the availability of basic school infrastructure in many communities. According to Eduwatch, these findings point to a failure to enforce existing laws rather than a lack of policy.

“Article 38(2) of the 1992 Constitution provides for Free Compulsory Basic Education (FCUBE), but the challenge is that Ghana has still not mustered the courage to fully enforce the compulsory aspect,” Mr. Asare lamented.

He dismissed the common argument that compulsory education should wait until all infrastructural and resource gaps are filled. “The discussion within political corridors has always been about how to declare basic education compulsory when we have not provided adequate schools. But the reality is that no country in the world has full adequacy in schools or educational inputs – it has to start from somewhere,” he explained.

Africa Education Watch is now calling on Parliament to take swift and decisive action to operationalise compulsory basic education. The organisation warns that continued inaction will not only undermine the development of Ghanaian children but also exacerbate existing inequalities and jeopardise the nation’s long-term human capital.

“Continued inaction risks undermining child development, widening inequality and jeopardising Ghana’s long-term human capital development,” Kofi Asare, Executive Secretary of Africa Education Watch, stated.

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