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A professor in International Education and Development, Professor Kwame Akyeampong, has called for a fundamental shift in how the country addresses its learning crisis.
He argued that the problem was rooted in social injustice and unequal access to quality education.
According to him, equity, not equality, should guide education policy and investment decisions.
“Equity is creating a level playing field for everybody.
Those who have more must have less so that those who have less get enough to be on the same level,” he said.
He warned that applying equal distribution in an unequal system widened disparities between rich and poor, as well as between urban and rural communities.
Prof. Akyeampong was speaking at a lecture in Accra last Thursday on the topic, “Reconceptualising the learning crisis for social justice: The case of Ghana”.
“If you give everybody the same thing, those who are rich get more, and those who don’t have much will not get as much,” he added.
Prof. Akyeampong, who is also a Senior Fellow at the CDD-Ghana, described the learning crisis in the country as a moral and social justice issue, noting that many children, especially in poor communities, did not experience sustained or meaningful learning despite attending school.
He said the situation reflected a failure to deliver on the universal right to free, quality basic education.
According to him, improvements in access to education had often been accompanied by widening gaps in learning outcomes across income levels, gender and location.
Prof. Akyeampong identified early childhood and lower primary education as the most urgent area for intervention.
He said every child in the country should achieve basic literacy and numeracy within the first years of schooling.
“It should not be the case that in a year or two, we have children who go to school and do not achieve basic literacy and numeracy.
That can be achieved,” he said.
He also called for strict enforcement of school entry age, which he said was six years for primary school, with kindergarten between four and five years.
Prof. Akyeampong explained that late school entry increased the risk of dropout, particularly among girls in disadvantaged communities.
Prof. Akyeampong highlighted language of instruction as a major barrier to learning, stating that many Ghanaian children were taught in the English language, which they did not understand.
He described that as a form of exclusion that began on the first day of school.
The professor advocated the use of mother tongue instruction from kindergarten to primary three, particularly in rural areas, to strengthen foundational learning.
He said children who developed strong literacy skills in their local languages were more likely to perform better when they transitioned to English.
Prof. Akyeampong also urged the government to deepen decentralisation in the education sector by giving districts more control over resources and teacher recruitment.
He said districts should be empowered to attract teachers through incentives such as housing and local support systems.
“Teachers should not be posted only from the centre.
Districts should be able to recruit and motivate teachers based on their needs,” he said.
Prof. Akyeampong recommended that reforms should prioritise classroom practices, teacher support and community engagement rather than focusing solely on technical solutions.
He also called for a more holistic approach to education that valued children’s agency, local knowledge and emotional well-being.
“Learning is not just technical. It is relational, cultural and social,” he said.
He stressed that addressing the learning crisis required deliberate policies that targeted the most disadvantaged children, warning that failure to do so would undermine national development.
