The World Bank as part of policy development services to member nations has recommended that government reviews its spending in the education sector, focusing on the efficiency of its spending in the secondary educational level.
According to the Banks latest Human Capital Index (HCI), Ghana spends higher than the average for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with 3.37 times the spending in primary education.
Speaking at the presentation of the World Banks Human Capital Index on Monday in Accra, the Practice Director for the Education Global Practice of the Bank, Dr. Luis Benveniste advised that government needs to put in place policies that lead to reduction in the level of wastage in the sector.
This report focused on four areas, namely; student progression with learning, teachers, budgets and capacity gaps.
The HCI measures the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18. It conveys the productivity of the next generation of workers compared to a benchmark of complete education and full health. It is constructed for 157 countries.
The Index in its overall assessment notes that Ghana’s HCI is higher than the average for its region, Sub-Sahara, but lower than the average predicted for its income group.
Human Capital Project
The Human Capital Project seeks to raise awareness and increase demand for interventions to build human capital. It aims to accelerate more and better investments in people.
The Project has three elements, namely; the Human Capital Index; a program to strengthen research on and measurement of human capital; and support for countries to accelerate progress in raising human capital outcomes.
It is made up of five indicators: the probability of survival to age five, a child’s expected years of schooling, harmonized test scores as a measure of quality of learning, adult survival rate fraction of 15-year olds that will survive to age 60, and the proportion of children who are not stunted.
By Joshua W. Amlanu