I have long believed you don’t need deep technical skills to lead a ministry in Ghana. What you need is a clear vision shaped by real experience, and the courage to follow it in ways that actually improve people’s lives. After almost 18 months of the current Minister of Education’s tenure, one question keeps coming up: What is his vision?
There’s been no clear direction, no real agenda, and no urgency. People across the education space see the same thing. Some are still waiting, hoping the minister’s priorities will show with time. But time doesn’t wait. A leader who fails to set a vision early ends up reacting instead of leading.
Education systems exist to guide teaching, learning, and human development so graduates can help build the country. Ghana’s system isn’t doing that. We know the issues. We understand the cost of ignoring them. What we don’t have is the will to act.
The sector has two sides. The soft side is policy, governance, and administration. The hard side is infrastructure. The soft side needs clear policies and steady enforcement. But Ghana has struggled with basic administrative tasks for decades. Teacher posting is a clear example. Cities have more teachers than they need, while rural areas are left with almost none. Literacy is another. Thousands of children in public schools can’t read or write by Grade.
These aren’t budget problems. They’re problems of planning, vision, and responsiveness. A serious ministry would have built a real‑time teacher data system by now. Something that tracks postings, transfers, vacancies, and attrition across districts. This isn’t complicated technology. But its absence keeps hurting quality and equity. When simple administrative issues stay broken, bigger goals like access and learning don’t stand a chance.
The infrastructure situation is even worse. Ghana’s population has grown faster than our school buildings. The gap is huge at every level.
In Northern Ghana, many schools don’t have desks or basic materials. A recent Africa Education Watch report shows that 2.3 million public basic school children nationwide don’t have desks. That’s about 40 percent of all basic school pupils. In the northern regions, it’s around 80%. Children sit on bare floors or stones to learn. This should trigger a national emergency.
But there’s no urgency. And it’s striking that one‑third of Ghana’s Members of Parliament come from the northern regions. Fixing this should unite them. Instead, the need is great, and the action is slow.
The bigger picture isn’t any better. More than 98 percent of public basic schools have never been renovated since they were built. Communities could have helped with upgrades, but mistrust in central government has made people pull back. Over 5,000 children still learn under trees.
And the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene situation is severe. About 1.5 million pupils are affected. Around 26 to 30% of schools don’t have improved toilets. Seventy‑nine percent don’t have safe water. About 7,000 schools have no hygiene facilities at all.
In the 2026 budget, the government set aside 2 billion Ghana cedis to build 600 new basic schools in underserved communities. That’s helpful, but the budget didn’t include money for renovating existing schools. It also didn’t offer a national plan for refurbishment.
The claim that the Ministry lacks vision and direction is fair. A government with a clear strategy would push structural reforms, decentralize financing, and use alternative building models to deal with both the infrastructure gap and the renovation backlog.
A few steps could help reset the agenda:
• Review the ESP — Hold a national education conference to reassess the Education Strategic Plan and match its targets with realistic funding. Strategies built on shaky assumptions don’t solve real problems.
• Prioritize renovation — Pause plans for new tertiary institutions and focus on renovating and retooling existing schools.
• Champion early‑grade reading — Launch a simple national campaign: children learning to read, and reading to learn. This would rally support for reading materials and foundational literacy.
Ghana’s education system has talent, intelligence, and potential. What it doesn’t have is direction. And until leadership offers a clear, workable vision, the system will keep drifting and leaving millions of children behind.
Author: Andrew Ofosu-Dankyi – Is a former Education Programme Manager, World Vision Ghana.
