Politics Of Educational Reform In Ghana: Explaining The Conversion Of Polytechnics To Technical Universities

Abstract

Governments in developing countries are changing educational policies to ensure better access and quality of education at all levels. The success of educational reforms depends on cooperation among the government, political parties, educational institutions, international development donors, and other stakeholders in the society to formulate and adopt appropriate policies. How to achieve cooperation among these actors has usually become a problem for many developing countries. It is in the light of this problem that this study delves into how cooperation among stakeholders was achieved in Ghana for the conversion of ten polytechnics to technical universities under two different governments. The study is an attempt to understand and explain the dynamics of policy change in the tertiary education sector of Ghana. The study uses the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) theoretical lens which argues that policy change such as the conversion of the polytechnics to technical universities occurs through the coupling of relatively separate streams of problems, policies, and politics at critical junctures by policy entrepreneurs. How these three separate streams are joined by policy entrepreneurs for successful governmental agenda setting, policy formulation, and policy adoption in the transformation of polytechnics to technical universities is the critical event that this study sought to understand. The study adopted a qualitative research methodology in the context of an interpretive philosophical paradigm. The study was conducted relying on data collected from semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis. The study found that the policy proposal for the conversion of the polytechnics to technical universities was conceived and advocated within the polytechnics. However, the policy proposal was taken up by the NDC government and made a key campaign promise during the 2012 electoral campaigns. After the elections, the government created a Technical Committee of policy experts in 2013, made up of Polytechnic Rectors and other relevant stakeholders, to generate proposals and a roadmap for the conversion to occur. The study also found that the policy proposals made by the experts strived to meet the criteria of technical feasibility, financial viability, and political acceptability to increase the chances of policy making success. Guided by the policy proposals, the policy experts, the NDC government, the Committee of Education in Parliament made up of Members of Parliament (MPs) from the NDC and opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), polytechnic students associations, and polytechnic employees associations cooperated to form a coalition of policy entrepreneurs that pushed the policy proposal through the stages of agenda setting, policy formulation, and policy adoption in 2016 to convert six qualified polytechnics to technical universities. When the NPP took over the seat of government in 2017, the same coalition of policy entrepreneurs followed the conversion criteria to convert two polytechnics in 2018 and the final two polytechnics in 2020. The study found that although problems stream, the policy-making stream, and the political stream are separate processes, the actors involved in the processes are not always separate. Polytechnic Rectors who advocated for the problems of polytechnic education to be solved by government were the same actors who generated the solution of conversion of polytechnics to technical universities. The study also found that MPs and Ministers in the political stream were members of the parliamentary Committee on Education as policy experts who worked with committees of policy experts outside parliament to fine the process of policy formulation. Government and MPs exercised their authority of legislative adoption of the policy proposals formulated by the policy entrepreneurs. The study supports the views of many scholars, including the originator of the MSF, that there is the need for scholars of the MSF to reformulate the idea that the three streams are independent, and they only join during the open windows of opportunity for policy making. The study, however, supports, the core theoretical claim of the MSF that there is the need for the coupling of the three streams through bargaining and negotiations among stakeholders to ensure successful and sustainable policymaking. The study found that the use of bargaining and negotiations by the NDC and NPP governments, facilitated by trusted policy experts, ensured cooperation between governing and opposition parties to support and sustain the policy change. In the context of Ghana’s constitutional democracy, the study recommends that entrepreneurs of policy change in the tertiary education sector should use bargaining and negotiations rather than coercion, force, and authority to push for the acceptance of their policy proposals. This will ensure appropriate coupling of problem entrepreneurs, policy experts, and political interests to support and sustain policy change.