The COVID-19 pandemic had its toll on the affairs of the global population thereby challenging the so-called normal way of doing things. Most impactful for us in education fraternity and champions of provision of social justice is that beginning from March 2020 there was historic closure of schools as part of measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Without doubt, just like many other countries across the world, Ghana’s education system and structures were impacted.

The closure of schools further brought in its wake disruptions that affected households. Livelihood opportunities as well as learning deficit concerns of children were greatly affected.  The government’s immediate response to the COVID-19 induced educational crisis introduced among other options remote teaching and learning interventions through radio and television programmes in order to minimize the adverse impact of the crisis on children’s education generally but their learning especially. 

Fast forward to July 2020 there was gradual reopening of the school system, amid promotion of protocols that are meant to deepen the containment measures, beginning with the tertiary sector and by 18 January 2021, a wholesale reopening of schools with the exception of first year students of senior high schools had taken place. The first-year senior high students also went to school in March 2021. 

Post school closure re-opening of school, there are questions that need to asked How did the closure of schools affect students’ return to school? Did schools experience maximum numbers of students returning or were there drop in student numbers?  

Answers to these questions and more are what the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) and the Centre for Global Development (CGD) working consortium with partners from Senegal, Malawi, Kenya and Pakistan sought to find out from households under PREPARE. Some initial results and findings are worth your reading pleasure! 

Read more here: https://www.cgdev.org/blog/what-happened-dropout-rates-after-covid-19-school-closures-ghana.