Ghana And The Millennium Development Goals (Mdgs): An Assessment Of Goal Two (2) In The Yilo-Krobo District

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were a pledge to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity, and free the world from extreme poverty. The MDGs, with eight goals and a set of measurable time bound targets were established to tackle the most pressing development challenges of our time (MDGs Report, 2014).The main objective of the MDGs is to make the world a global village, which will eventually; make everyone proud of their environment (MDGs Report, 2012).The Government of Ghana has shown commitment towards the achievement of Universal Primary Education (MDG 2) by ensuring that all children of primary school-age enroll and complete by 2015. This commitment was through policy directives among other interventions like the Education Strategy Plan (ESP) for 2003-2015, the Growth Poverty Reduction Strategy, the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education Programme and the 1992 Constitution of Ghana. Despite all these efforts, the MDG 2 has not been achieved in Ghana. It is against this background that this study was conducted to assess the MDG 2 in the Yilo-Krobo District in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The specific objectives of the study is to examine the trend of completion and incompletion of primary education of children in the Yilo-Krobo district from 2010-2015, to find out the main causes of incompletion of primary education in the district, to assess the progress toward achieving MDG 2 target in the district .The study made use of both primary and secondary sources of data to gather the required data for the study. The results of the study indicated that generally, the rate of completion of primary education was relatively high as compared to the rate of incompletion. The conditions of the school facilities in some of the schools surveyed were not so conducive for teaching and learning. The Dipo rite was identified and concluded as the only socio-cultural factor hindering the achievement of the MDG 2 in the district. The researcher recommends that teachers’ motivation and incentive packages should be given the needed attention in the district.