Actors, bricolage, and translation
in education policy: a case study

from Ghana

PAUL ACHEAMPONG BOAKYE

Political Science Department, University of Ghana, Post Office Box LG ,
Legon-Accra, Ghana

Email: paboakye@ug.edu.gh

and

DANIEL BÉLAND

Department of Political Science, McGill University,  Sherbrooke Street
West, Montreal, QC, Canada, HA T

Email: daniel.beland@mcgill.ca

A B S T R A C T

Due to the centrality of education to economic growth and social development, suc-
cessive governments in post-colonial Ghana have implemented policies to improve
the quality of education in the country. In line with this, Ghana embarked on its first
major education reform in  under the Provisional National Defence Council
(PNDC) government. While several studies have been conducted to explain this
reform, these studies have largely been descriptive and theoretically, have over
relied on the conditionality thesis. Our study draws on ideational literature and
research interviews to offer an alternative explanation of the  reform.
Drawing extensively on the ideational concepts of bricolage and translation and
focusing on the actors using these two mechanisms, the study argues that, while
exogenous forces did impact the  reform, it was mainly driven by endogenous
factors featuring both path dependent and departing changes.

Keywords –Ghana, education reform, bricolage, translation, ideas, path dependency.

J. of Modern African Studies, ,  (), pp. – © The Author(s), . Published by Cambridge
University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/./), which permits unrestricted re-use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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I N T R O D U C T I O N

Education has long been considered a key aspect of economic and social devel-
opment (Foster ; Gyimah-Brempong ), and this is reflected in the
annual budgetary allocations to education in countries across the globe (Al-
Samarrai ; Frankema ). Particularly, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), a
minimal level of education is considered central to alleviating extreme
poverty and combating diseases, as evident in African governments’ commit-
ment to education as the principal instrument for modernisation (Foster
). In view of this, successive governments in post-colonial Ghana have
made conscious efforts to improve the quality of education in the country
regardless of their ideological stands. For example, the Convention Peoples
Party (CPP) government introduced in  the Accelerated Development
Plan (ADP), which abolished tuition fees, with the objective of achieving
Universal Primary Education (UPE) for all Ghanaians within  years. A
decade later, the CPP government introduced the  Education Act, which
made universal primary education compulsory in order to consolidate the
ADP’s gains (Francis ; Aziabah ). During the rule of the National
Redemption Council (NRC), education reforms were introduced in  to
significantly change Ghana’s education system. However, due to financial con-
straints, these reforms were only piloted in selected districts across Ghana (Quist
; Kuyini ). Upon taking office in , the Provisional National
Defence Council (PNDC) embarked on a nation-wide education reform
aimed at revamping the deteriorated education system they had inherited.
Similarly, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government inaugurated a -
member Presidential Committee, under the chairmanship of Professor
Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, on  January  to review Ghana’s education
system. This review led to the first major nationwide education reform under
the Fourth Republic in . Thus, Ghana has had two major education
reforms ( and ) since independence in . The study focuses on
the  reform for three reasons. First, it was the first major national education
reform in post-independent Ghana that significantly transformed Ghana’s edu-
cation system (Quist ; Osei-Mensah  Int.). Second, several studies on
the  reform are descriptive and over rely on the ‘conditionality thesis’,
which focuses on structural factors while neglecting ideational factors. Finally,
unlike the  reform which occurred under a democratic regime, the 
reform happened under military rule.
While several studies have been conducted to examine these reforms, most of

these studies have either been descriptive in nature or relied on the ‘condition-
ality thesis’ to account for these reforms (Braimah et al. ; Adu-Gyamfi et al.
). The conditionality thesis appeals to many scholars because many SSA
countries underwent education reforms as part of the Structural Adjustment
Policies (SAP) under the broader IMF and World Bank-led Economic
Recovery Programme (ERP) agreement signed with many SSA governments
in the mid-s (see Babalola et al. ; Collier et al. ; Geo-JaJa &

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Mangum ; Shah ). We note that, in many of these studies, the con-
cepts of conditionality and imposition have been used interchangeably.
However, we contend in this study that ‘imposition’ is manifested through ‘con-
ditionalities’. Thus, aid conditionalities become the mechanism through which
exogenous actors (particularly the IMF and World Bank) undertake policy
imposition in developing countries. Against this background and drawing on
ideational literature and  semi-structured interviews with various education
and policy actors, this study examines, in detail, the  education reform in
post-independence Ghana. Particularly, the study addresses the following ques-
tions: what were the factors that drove the  reform? Did the  reform
lead to policy stability or change in Ghana’s education system? Who were the
key actors and what mechanisms did they employ to shape education reform?
Focusing on the role of ideas and the related concepts of bricolage and transla-
tion, this study offers an alternative explanation for the adoption of the 
education reform in Ghana. While we recognise the influence of international
organisations on that reform, we show that the main factors behind the reform
are endogenous in nature. Thus, the reform was mainly as a result of both public
outcry and the desire of the PNDC government to align the educational system
to its political agenda. The quest for the  reform was made easier when the
IMF and World Bank made education reform a requirement under the
Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) it signed with the PNDC government
in . However, instead of imposing these conditionalities, we argue that
the IMF and the World Bank engaged ideational mechanisms to influence
the  education reform process on ideational mechanisms (see Foli &
Béland ; Béland & Ridde ; Foli et al. ; on ideational transnational
influence see Orenstein ; Haang’andu & Béland ). Consequently, the
 reform was the product of both exogenous and endogenous forces but the
latter proved more influential, a claim at odds with the ‘conditionality thesis’,
which focuses primarily on exogeneous forces. The ideational framework on
bricolage and translation outlined in this paper to account for the impact of
both endogenous and exogenous factors is applicable to multiple contexts
beyond sub-Saharan Africa and the Global South and could be used to study
change in education policy all over the world.
The paper begins with an outline of our ideational analytical framework on

bricolage and translation in education policy reform. We then proceed to
discuss the reasons why Ghana initiated the  educational reform from the
perspective of both policymakers (i.e. the interviewees) and official documents
( education report and the government’s white paper). This is followed by
an analysis of the key actors involved in the reform process and the ideational
mechanisms these actors employed, namely bricolage and translation.

I D E A S , B R I C O L A G E A N D T R A N S L A T I O N

Much of the early public policy literature on policy stability and change tends to
see change as following an evolutionary path resulting in incrementalism, which

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is characterised by the making of successive marginal changes to existing policy
(Lindblom ), and path dependency, where existing policies that take a par-
ticular course induce further movements along the same pattern (North ;
Pierson ). Thus, policies develop gridlocks, in the form of constituents,
which makes transformative policy change very unlikely under most circum-
stances. In view of this, many scholars (e.g. Graham ; Braimah et al.
; Adu-Gyamfi et al. ) argue that the  education reform in
Ghana was incremental in nature and simply an extension of the 
reform. Where there has been the need to account for transformative
change, in SSA and elsewhere around the world, the focus has been on exogen-
ous forces (see Pierson ; Campbell ). However, there have been a
number of works that highlight the possibility of path departing policy
change stemming from endogenous factors rather than endogenous factors
such as economic crises and international processes (Hall ; Hacker
; Thelen ). This literature is relevant for the present paper because
we need to explain why Ghana shifted from an education system fostering
national identity and social solidarity in the s and s (see Foster
) to a system based on economic imperatives in the late s (Quist
). An ideational framework is adopted to discuss the  reforms in
Ghana because ideas can both constrain and facilitate reforms while stressing
the more general impact of endogenous factors that the literature on policy
change has emphasised (Hacker ; Thelen ; Chakroun ;
Steiner-Khamsi ; Takayama et al. ). As such, the study employs
Campbell’s () concepts of bricolage and translation to explain how idea-
tional mechanisms shaped the education policy process in Ghana (on these
two concepts and how they can apply to sub-Saharan Africa see Haang’andu
& Béland ).
The turn to ideas is appropriate for the analysis of education policy reform in

Ghana in part because it recognises that both internal and external actors within
the policy arena can influence the policy process autonomously from structural
factors. Thus, ideational analysis enables us to elucidate the critical role of
agency in education reforms, which is largely neglected by education research-
ers. Ideational approaches to politics tend to start from the assumption that
policy actors face considerable uncertainty about the nature of their own inter-
ests or how to pursue them due to both cognitive limitations and incomplete
information (on this issue see Blyth ). Therefore, the introduction of
new ideas causes actors to reshape their policy preferences, making interests
less stable than rational choice scholars might predict. Thus, norms and ideas
partly constitute an actor’s perceived interests and policy preferences, which
are not simply a reflection of their structural position (Campbell ).
Thus, ideas affect policymaking rather than simply reflecting structural

forces. They can serve as political weapons in the hands of concrete political
actors who seek to shape public policy (Blyth ). This was the case with
the  reform, when the PNDC government sought to introduce populist
and pro-poor ideas into the educational system running counter to some of

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the requirements of the IMF and the World Bank. The focus on actors is crucial
here simply because ideational analysis stresses the agency of political and policy
actors (Béland & Cox ). Yet, while identifying key actors and the role they
play in policymaking, Campbell () discusses two novel ideational mechan-
isms that allow us to trace concrete causal processes capable of shaping policy
proposals and decisions: bricolage and translation.
First, according to Campbell (), bricolage follows a logic of instrumental-

ity by recombining already existing ideational and institutional elements to
create something new. Thus, during the process of bricolage, policymakers
attempt to re-use available materials in order to solve new problems (Baker &
Nelson ; on bricolage see also Levi-Strauss  and Carstensen ).
However, in education research, bricolage has been described either as basically
a way to learn and solve problems by trying, testing and playing around or, to
denote the use of multi-perspectival research methods (Kincheloe ;
Phillimore et al. ). This study adopts Campbell’s () definition of brico-
lage, which is consistent with Levi-Strauss’s work because it brings to the fore the
importance of agency and understanding local policy contexts in policymaking
as espoused by education scholars such as Steiner-Khamsi () and Tan &
Chua () in their discussions of education policy borrowing. Thus, bricolage
enables policymakers to make significant policy changes to existing policies
through endogenous processes that are ‘gradual, hermeneutic and discourse-
intensive activity’ (Wilder & Howlett : ). Bricolage is therefore a
highly localised activity that can quickly respond to changing circumstances as
resources at hand are combined to address new problems and opportunities.
Yet, what differentiates Campbell’s bricolage from policy borrowing is the uni-
directional and coercive nature of policy borrowing, akin to that of the condi-
tionality thesis. Simultaneously, bricolage ensures that policymakers look
within their local environment to innovate or design solutions to address
their local problems.
Second, translation is an ideational and institutional mechanism that com-

bines endogenous and exogenous elements to bring about policy change in a
particular jurisdiction by both adopting external ideas and adapting them to
their new environment (Campbell, ; on translation see also Clarke et al.
). Translation is very critical to policy studies because of globalisation,
which has led to increased transnational movements of people, data and
ideas. The outcome of such movements has been the influence of apparently
shared policy agendas for various policy areas, including education. As Ozga
et al. () rightly note, policy work is no longer operating within closed
systems through bureaucratically organised, commanded and controlled pro-
cesses. Rather, policy processes occur in complex systems involving borrowing
and lending. The claim therefore is, behind the concept of translation, existing
ideas and institutions provide repertoires that actors use to reframe and adjust
policy innovations diffused from other jurisdiction so that they ‘fit in’ the adopt-
ing jurisdiction. The most important contribution of the concept of translation
is that it shows how policy diffusion is not just about borrowing ideas from

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elsewhere but about adapting them to existing, endogenous ideational and insti-
tutional settings (Campbell ; see also Quist ; Steiner-Khamsi ).
However, we must be aware of the fact that the translation of ideas does not
occur always for rational reasons because the ideas borrowed are, in the
words of Steiner-Khamsi (: ), ‘proven to be good or – even worse –
because they represent best practices’. There may be political and economic
reasons that must be accounted for in the reform process. For example, the
shift in the objective of Ghana’s education during the  reform was
mainly due to the economic reasons advanced by the IMF and World Bank as
they pushed for an Education for Knowledge Economy (EKE) globally.
We focus on these two mechanisms for our study because they point to the

role of endogenous factors in policy change and, in the case of translation,
the need to account for (exogenous) transnational diffusion and how it leads
to jurisdiction-specific policy adaptation (Quist ; Steiner-Khamsi ).
Simultaneously, these two concepts address systematically the issue of both
agency and transnational influence while stressing the role of ideas in a way
that is far more explicit than most of the existing literature on endogenous
yet transformative policy change (e.g. Hacker ; Thelen ; Streeck &
Thelen ). This is the case because bricolage and translation are inherently
ideational concepts that stress the agency of the actors that draw on these two
mechanisms to bring about policy change despite the threat of institutional
inertia (Campbell ). Referred to as institutional entrepreneurs, these
actors ‘embrace, fabricate, manipulate and carry the different types of ideas’
(Campbell : ).

M E T H O D S

This is a qualitative single case study that engages in thematic content analysis to
identify patterns, themes, biases and meaning. The study draws on two types of
data: interviews with policy actors and government documents. First, we con-
ducted content analysis of key government documents under four key themes
(i.e. objectives, financing, content and structure and duration) of the 
reform. The documents analysed included the  ADPE,  (Act ),
 Kwapong Committee Report,  Dzobo Committee Report, 
Republic of Ghana Constitutional Commission Proposal,  Evans-Anfom
Commission Report, and the  and  Constitutions of Ghana. Being
mindful of the context within which these themes were being used in these
documents, we further identified important themes such as ideas informing
the reform processes, political influences, conditionalities, and key actors
involved in the reform processes. In addition to the secondary data above, we
also conducted  interviews with key policy personnel. To recruit interviewees,
we developed selection criteria and an institutional map. Based on these two,
respondents were recruited using stratified and purposive sampling techniques.
We interviewed five officials of the Ministry of Education (MoE), Ghana
Education Service (GES) and Non-Formal Education Division (NFED). These

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officers were the key personnel in charge of basic and secondary education
reforms within their various agencies. We also interviewed two former
Director-Generals of GES who were directly involved in the  reform, and
three key consultants of the MoE and GES who are education experts remotely
involved with the  reform and are currently assisting in the implementation
of major policy decisions of the ruling NPP government. In addition, we con-
ducted six interviews with members of the academia from the Universities of
Ghana, Cape Coast and Winneba which included two former Vice-
Chancellors who were knowledgeable about the  reform. We also inter-
viewed two traditional authorities (chiefs) knowledgeable in Ghana’s education
reforms. The remaining  interviews were conducted with International
Governmental Organisations () including the World Bank, UNICEF and
UNESCO; International NGOs (three) including World Education; and local
NGOs () including the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition
(GNECC) and the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT). These
 interviewees were mostly circumstantial respondents but with great depth
of knowledge of education reforms in Ghana due to the nature of their work.
The interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide with
the aim of co-creating knowledge with the respondents. The qualitative software
NVIVO v was then used to undertake a thematic analysis of the interview data.
Finally, we wove together the findings from the interview data and document
review to develop a coherent argument in examining the  reform.

T H E M A K I N G O F T H E     E D U C A T I O N R E F O R M

Focusing on exogenous and structural forces, many scholars (e.g. Akyeampong
; Braimah et al. ; Nudzor ) have attributed the  reform in
Ghana to the numerous aid conditionalities imposed by the IMF and the
World Bank in the  ERP agreement. For example, Braimah et al. (:
–) argue that:

The  education reform was a political as well as an economic imposition by the
IMF/World Bank in an attempt to salvage the economic downturn of the Ghanaian
economy. This external imposition to reform the school system was presented
superficially, as a home-grown educational policy by the military government – the
Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) headed by Jerry John Rawlings.

Yet, interview data collected for this research project point to a different, more
important side of the story. The data suggest that, since independence in ,
the quest for educational reforms in Ghana has been embedded in the idea held
by successive governments that the country’s public education system ought to
foster national unity and promote economic and social development (Foster
; Quist , ). In an interview with Anarfi ( Int.), he noted:
‘Every substantive government from Nkrumah’s time up to date wants to
change the style of education to suit the modern condition or the present-day
conditions.’ Likewise, Acquaye ( Int.) also noted: ‘Society is dynamic,

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and the technology is advancing and if you want to remain in the global
economy, you need to change your curriculum and change your educational
system.’ As Quist (: ) succinctly puts it:

This model [the introduction of the JSS and SSS concepts during  and later
 reforms] was introduced voluntarily by an independent nation-state that
had over the years reflected on the efficiency and effectiveness of its educational
system, particularly the secondary level, in addressing national needs, responding
to national demands and calls for its reform that would promote and accelerate
national development.

In view of this, and without being solely compelled to do so by exogenous forces,
the PNDC government established an Education Commission (EC) chaired by
Dr Emmanuel Evans-Anfom in  to review and report on basic, teacher,
technical/vocational and agricultural education in Ghana in line with PNDC’s
anti-elitist, pro-poor, pro-rural social policies (Education Commission ).
Justifying the ‘need to reform’ (Cox ), Flt. Lt. Rawlings described the

existing education system as one that was oppressive and stultified the
Ghanaian child (Fobi et al. ). Rawlings identified three key forms of oppres-
sion rooted in the existing education system: the denial of equal opportunity;
the overemphasis on conformity at the expense of creativity; and the strong
focus on self-interest rather than on social solidarity. Thus, Rawlings envisaged
an ‘education system which was non-oppressive but transformative and values cre-
ativity as well as promotes social justice’ (Fobi et al. : ). Many Ghanaians
and scholars also decried the deprived and not fit for purpose nature of
Ghana’s education system in the early s, when the PNDC took power.
These views were summed up in the National Education Forum (NEF) report
in  as follows: ‘by , Ghana’s educational system, which until the mid-
s was known to be one of the most highly developed and effective in West
Africa, had deteriorated in quality. Enrolment rates, once among the highest in
the sub-Saharan region, stagnated and fell’ (National Education Forum : ).
Thus, the  reform cannot be attributed only to aid conditionalities from

the IMF and the World Bank as suggested by some scholars. In an interview
conducted as part of this project, Apanbil ( Int.) indicated that: ‘Our
[Ghana’s] basic education system before Rawlings took over had virtually col-
lapsed … it was not functioning properly … We therefore had to reform the
[educational] system to make it relevant to our environment. The IMF can’t
tell us what to do.’ Similarly, Anamuah-Mensah ( Int.) also indicated
that the various reforms came about due to the: ‘General recognition by large
majority of the population that education system requires a face lift … people
during the period were complaining about their kids completing school and
not doing anything.’ Again, in another interview, Dadzie ( Int.) noted:
‘It [the  reform] was made by the society [people] itself. A lot of complaints
about the need to change the [existing] system, the need to produce the skills
we need as a country.’ Thus, it is clear from our interview data that the introduc-
tion of the  education reform was not primarily the product of an

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exogenous, structural imposition from the Bretton Woods Institutions, but
rather the result of an apparent need recognised by domestic actors to make
education more relevant to Ghana’s socio-economic development.
More specifically, the decision to embark on the  educational reform

stemmed from two main reasons. First, there was public outcry about the
quality of the existing education system because the policy recommendations
under the  education reform had not been fully implemented.
Accordingly, the general public saw the need for an education reform as a
national emergency. Second, the PNDC government saw the existing education
system as inadequate for its transformative developmental agenda (Fobi et al.
). These two primary reasons behind the impetus for reform were then
augmented by the demands from the IMF and World Bank for the government
to cut down social expenditure under the ERP agreement in , as shown in
Table I. While the IMF and World Bank demanded cuts in social expenditure,
which included education spending, the nature and form of the cut was primar-
ily the preserve of the PNDC government. Regarding education, the IMF and
World Bank recognised that education was a political demand; hence, imposing
conditionality was not feasible. As Ackwerh ( Int.) indicated:

there was no hand in it [ education reform] … And actually, what the Bank
[World Bank] does is actually funding their strategy … So, it’s they [government]
who decide what they want to do. They can come to the Bank … we don’t force
them to do anything… They decide that we want to do this and we provide our
ideas and views but the decision lies with the government.

These Bretton Woods Institutions, therefore, adopted ideational mechanisms
through negotiations, ministerial meetings, workshops and global conferences
to push through its education reform ideas (i.e. Education for Knowledge
Economy) in Ghana and the Global South. This remark suggests that, while
endogenous ideational and political factors were the main factors behind the
 reform, yet exogenous forces did play a significant role in the education
reform process except not through a form of an ‘imposition’ or ‘conditionality’
but rather through ideational processes, something we explore in greater detail
in the next section.

K E Y A C T O R S A N D T H E I R I N F L U E N C E

The PNDC government set up an Education Commission under the chairman-
ship of Dr Emmanuel Evans-Anfom in  to review and make appropriate
recommendations for the reform of the existing education system. The
Commission was made up of  local members and six international consultants
including two well-known authors (Ngugi wa Thiong’o from Kenya and Chinua
Achebe from Nigeria) and a distinguished Brazilian education expert Paulo
Freire. However, the six international consultants did not participate in the
work of the Commission (EC ). Thus, only the  local members made
up of Ministry of Education (), West Africa Examination Council (),

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National Union of Ghana Students (), Ghana National Association of Teachers
(), Education Unit of Missions () and Trade Union Congress () served on
the Commission.
The commissioners used several means available to them to acquire the

needed data for their report. They reviewed past reforms, particularly the
 reform, and the available educational literature in general. They also
requested for the submission of memoranda from the public. Unfortunately,
not many memoranda were submitted due to the political atmosphere at the
time. The activities of the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution
(CDRs) established in  created an atmosphere of fear, panic and general
mistrust (Agyeman-Duah ; Hutchful ). The outcome was a ‘culture
of silence’ with a non-existent civil society (Ankomah ). To overcome
this challenge, the Commission visited several basic and senior secondary
schools; vocational and technical institutes, and tertiary level institutions to
interact with students, teachers and administrators. Due to inadequate
financial support, these visits were limited to the Accra-Tema metropolis
(Aheto-Tsegah  Int.; Apanbil  Int.). Thus, the views of those in the
rural areas were not captured by the Commission. The Commission also inter-
viewed representatives of some selected institutions that were seen to be stake-
holders. These included government agencies that were education-related such
as Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Examination Council; Trade and
Teacher Unions; National Union of Ghanaian Students (NUGS) and the
Education Units of the various missions in Ghana (EC ).
In addition to the above, the work of the EC was also informed by global devel-

opments in education. Ghana is a signatory to several international declarations
and conventions on education. These include the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the  Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the 
International Covenant on Economic, Social and cultural Rights. These conven-
tions affirmed the right of individuals to an education system that respects their
personality, talents, abilities and cultural heritage. In particular, the global push
for Education for Knowledge Economy (EKE) by the World Bank and IMF
impacted greatly on educational reforms in SSA countries that undertook struc-
tural adjustment programmes funded by these two institutions (Kadingdi ;

T A B L E I
Summary of factors responsible for the  education reform.

Factors for the  Education Reform

Endogenous Factors Exogenous Factor

. The desire of the ruling PNDC government to
reform the education system in line with its trans-
formative agenda

. The push for the global adoption of the
EKE by the World Bank and IMF

. Public demand for education reform

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Kuyini ; Nudzor ). The EKE was in line with the neo-liberal, modernist
and market-driven policy orientation of the World Bank and IMF.
Consequently, the World Bank and IMF pushed for education systems that fos-
tered privatisation, cost recovery and the rhetoric of EKE in Ghana during the
implementation of the ERP. It is instructive to note that the IMF and the World
Bank recognised that imposing a neo-liberal and market-driven education
reform was incompatible with the core ideals of the socialist-oriented PNDC
military government. As such, any form of a neo-liberal policy imposition on
education reform on a populist and socialist-oriented government such as the
PNDC would have been met with stiff opposition. Thus, these international
organisations employed ideational tactics such as organising ministerial meet-
ings, workshops and global conferences to drive home the need for countries
in the Global South such as Ghana to adopt the EKE paradigm. Promising
financial assistance for education reforms based on the EKE, many countries,
including Ghana, adopted the EKE principles in re-aligning the objective of
their education system. While it is impossible to talk about exogenous impos-
ition, the  reform reflected this market-oriented thinking pushed by the
World Bank and the IMF.
First, the objective of Ghana’s education shifted from the ideals of national

integration, nation-building and disabusing the minds of citizens of colonial
history, experiences and vestiges in  to emphasis on the creation of a
highly skilled, flexible human capital needed to compete in a global market.
Thus, the  reform aimed at creating an individual who was enterprising
and a competitive entrepreneur who possessed transferable core skills to
become a compliant pro-capitalist worker (King ; Nudzor ).
Second, as noted already, the IMF and World Bank pushed for cuts in public

education spending and proposed that Ghanaians self-finance their education.
The demand for self-financing of education was, however, partly rejected by the
populist and socialist-oriented PNDC government during the  reform.
Accordingly, cost-recovery measures in what became known as ‘cost-sharing’
were introduced under the  reform. However, for fear of political backlash
stemming from the contrast between this neoliberal approach and the party’s
populist and pro-poor stands, the PNDC government could not introduce
cost-sharing at the basic level of education. Thus, cost-sharing was limited to sec-
ondary and tertiary levels of education under the  reform. The outcome
was the reduction in secondary education from four to three years, the introduc-
tion of school fees and academic facility user fees (AFUF), and increased pri-
vatisation of education services. These measures began the alignment of
Ghana’s educational policies towards the demands and trends of international
and pro-capitalist institutions (Kuyini ; Nudzor ).

T H E     E D U C A T I O N R E F O R M : S T A B I L I T Y A N D C H A N G E

In addressing the issue of stability and change, Campbell () argues that
when the different dimensions of a policy are analysed, we may ascertain the

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direction of change of these dimensions. We therefore analyse the  educa-
tion reform under the four major dimensions identified earlier. Analysing the
 reform within this framework reveals interesting findings.
The first dimension of the reform dealt with the objective of education. As dis-

cussed earlier, the global push for EKE by the IMF and World Bank led to a shift
from the identity-creating education system established in  to an economic-
value focused education system. Thus, education was to make Ghanaians com-
petitive in the global market. Hence, the objective of the  education reform
was path departing and not path dependent. This path departing change was
due to two reasons. First was the economic crisis Ghana experienced in the
wake of global oil hikes, a drop in world cocoa prices and the deportation of
several thousands of Ghanaians from neighbouring Nigeria (Ninsin ;
Tsikata ). This forced the PNDC government to turn to the Bretton
Woods Institutions for financial bail-out. The bail-out did come, but with
some conditionalities, which included the reduction in public education spend-
ing. However, reducing public education spending was at variance with the
ideals of the populist and socialist-oriented PNDC government. To navigate
this challenge, the IMF and the World Bank employed ideational tools such
as meetings, conferences, country annual reports and workshops to begin a
global push for neo-liberal education systems that sought to dislodge the post-
independence nationalist and socialist education systems put in place by nation-
alist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania
(Trowler ; Nudzor ). The push for a global paradigm shift in educa-
tion and the financial resources of IMF and World Bank enabled them to
influence education systems across SSA through workshops, publication of
country annual reports and global conferences on education.
The second dimension of the  reform was the structure of the education

system and the duration of pre-tertiary education. Again, as noted already, the
government was required to reduce public spending in education under
the ERP agreement. As such, pre-tertiary education had to be restructured by
the  reform. The middle school and sixth form systems were abolished.
A -year Junior Secondary (JSS) education was introduced to replace the abol-
ished middle school. Secondary education (SSS) was also reduced from  years
to  years. This considerably reduced pre-tertiary education by  years (i.e. from
 years to  years). Even though this reduction had begun under the 
reform (i.e. from  years to  years), it was never fully implemented. The
 reform embarked upon a nationwide restructuring and reduction in the
number of years as opposed to the pilot implementation under the 
reform.
The third dimension was the financing of basic education. Even though the

IMF and World Bank required the PNDC government to reduce public spend-
ing on education, it was politically suicidal for the PNDC to introduce any form
of cost-sharing or fees at the basic level due to its populist and pro-poor stands.
In an interview with Osei-Mensah ( Int.), he said: ‘Quantum [education
spending] may be dropping in terms of percentage of it to our budget in

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financing, but then clearly you can see that every government puts in a lot of
money to basic, so there’s kind of consistency when it comes to financing
basic education.’ Consequently, the government continued with the free univer-
sal basic education, but introduced cost-sharing measures at the secondary and
tertiary levels of education. Yet, to reduce education spending at the basic level,
the government reduced the duration of basic education from  years to 
years (i.e.  years of primary education and  years JSS).
The last dimension of the  reform dealt with the content of the educa-

tion system. While the subjects for primary education under the  reform
were maintained, there were minor changes in the JSS curriculum to emphasise
pre-vocational education. This was to enable students to develop not only their
cognitive skills, but also their manual skills. In all, students were required to take
 subjects comprising  core subjects and  non-vocational elective in JSS, as
shown in Table II. Under the  reform, students were required to do  core
subjects. In addition, they were required to self-select  pre-vocational and tech-
nical subjects from a list of  subjects. This meant that  subjects were learned
at JSS level. However, the  reform reduced this number to  and specified
the pre-vocational subjects that students were required to take.
From the above discussions, both path departing and path dependent

changes occurred when the dimensions of the  reform are specified as
above. The objective and the structure and duration of Ghana’s education
system under the  reform witnessed path departing changes as discussed
earlier. These changes were partly due to the economic crisis that necessitated
the ERP agreement in  and the push for a global paradigm shift by the IMF
and World Bank. Again, the change was also due to the limited number of veto
players at the time. As Tsebelis () argues, there is a reduced probability of
enacting a policy change when there is an increase in the number of veto players
in the policy space. The military government at the time had gradually intro-
duced a culture of silence (Agyeman-Duah ; Gyimah-Boadi ), which
resulted in a non-existent civil society. Thus, the policy space was the reserve
of the military regime and its associates. This made it easy for the government
to undertake the shift in the objective of education as the government did
not entertain dissenting and opposing views, hence there were no genuine
‘veto players’ capable of shaping outcomes except the IMF and World Bank
who had the financial resources to back their policy recommendations.
On the other hand, there was policy stability in the financing of basic edu-

cation. This was due to the increased cohesion of the members of the PNDC
government and its associates to oppose any attempt by the IMF and World
Bank to introduce fees and cost-sharing at the basic level. A cost-sharing policy
at the basic level was seen by the PNDC government as inconsistent with its
ideological claims of being a government of the poor and vulnerable in
society. As discussed earlier, when there is an increase in the cohesion of a
given veto player’s constituent group, policy change may be difficult to
achieve (Tsebelis ; Trebilcock ). This was the case with financing
basic education.

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With respect to the content of the education system, the  reform was
largely path dependent with some incremental changes at the JSS level. One
would have expected that once the objective of education had changed, the
content would have also received considerable revision. However, this was not
the case for one simple reason: the government was constrained with regard
to the availability and capacity of existing teachers to deliver any dramatic
content changes. Again, any dramatic change to the curriculum would have
been met with strike actions from the GNAT (Apanbil  Int.). This institu-
tional constraint forced the government to introduce minor changes to the
existing curriculum.

B R I C O L A G E

The Evans-Anfom Education Commission ostensibly recombined existing edu-
cational principles and practices outlined in previous educational reforms (par-
ticularly the  reform) to innovate and craft solutions to address the
identified problems in Ghana’s education system in a process Campbell
() referred to as bricolage. To begin with, the government instituted a
-member EC to reform the education system. However, six of the members
who were all international experts failed to participate in the work of the
Commission. While the reason for their failure to participate remains
unclear, many believe it was due to the culture of silence that had permeated
Ghanaian society at the time (Osei-Mensah  Int.). As a result, only 
members, who were all Ghanaians, participated in the reform process. Even
though the Commission reviewed international scholarly works on education
reforms, they did not directly benefit from the international perspectives of
the six foreign experts. Again, due to the economic challenges at the time,
the government did not provide adequate funds for the Commission to

T A B L E I I .
List of subjects in the JSS curriculum.

Core subjects Pre-vocational subjects

Mathematics Metalwork
Ghanaian language Technical Drawing
Social Studies Mechanics
Cultural Subjects Local Crafts
Practical Agriculture Home Economics
Science Business Studies

Pre-vocational Subjects Examined only internally Non-vocational Elective
Arts and Music French
Life Skills
Physical Education

Source: Education Commission ().

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embark on international travels to learn best practices from other countries. In
addition, due to the unavailability of funds and the military regime in place, the
Commission limited its public engagement to a few selected individuals and
institutions in Accra and Tema, depriving other segments of the society the
opportunity to participate in the reform process. Confronted with these chal-
lenges, the Commission had to rely on existing educational principles and prac-
tices to innovate and address the perceived challenges within the existing
education system.
In line with this, the Evans-Anfom Commission reviewed existing policies to

guide them in their recommendations. Particularly, the work of the Commission
was influenced by the education reports issued by the Konuah and Dzobo
Education Committees in  and , respectively. For example, the recom-
mendations of the Dzobo Committee in  had already led to a significant
reduction in the number of years of pre-tertiary education from  years
(:::) to  years (::). In addition, the  reform introduced and
piloted the JSS/SSS concepts to replace the middle school and ‘O’ and ‘A’
levels. The Evans-AnfomCommissionmaintained this structure but recommended
a nationwide roll-out of the JSS/SSS concept in . Again, they maintained the
-year basic education and only reduced secondary education by a  year. This
reduced pre-tertiary education from  years (::) to  years (::).
Thus, the EC and the actors involved in the  reform basically tapped into

their existing repertoire of policies and practices to innovate through bricolage.
The outcome of the  reform was therefore a new education system
that resembled the previous education system introduced in . As noted
by Campbell (), bricolage could either be substantive or symbolic.
Substantive bricolage follows the rational-choice logic of instrumentality
where actors are guided by their self-interest and goals. Symbolic bricolage,
on the other hand, follows the cultural logic of appropriateness where indivi-
duals seek to act appropriately vis-à-vis their cultural environments (Campbell
; Parsons ). The  education reform was a combination of these
two types of bricolage. Substantively, the reform was to aid the PNDC govern-
ment in its transformational agenda by producing the needed labour force
for the state (Osei ; Osei-Mensah  Int.). In an interview with Dzeagu
( Int.), she said: ‘the  reform was expected to equip students with
the skills to enable them to transition into the world of work after junior high
[school] and be able to function adequately’. However, the decision to maintain
and continue financing basic education in spite of the harsh economic condi-
tions at the time was purely symbolic as the government attempted to stick to
its socialist leanings. The symbolic bricolage was for two reasons. First, it was
an attempt by the PNDC government to generate public acceptance and legit-
imacy for the  reform within the broad social environment. Second and
most importantly, it was a means of assuring Ghanaians that regardless of the
ERP agreement signed with the IMF and World Bank in , the PNDC gov-
ernment would continue to introduce and implement pro-poor and pro-rural
policies.

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T R A N S L A T I O N

As suggested above, translation involves the ‘combination of externally given
elements [ideas] received through diffusion and domestically given ones inher-
ited from the past’ (Campbell : ). Although the  reform did not see
very much of translation due to the military nature of the government, limited
translation efforts from the IMF and World Bank were significant enough to
change the objective of Ghana’s education. Typical of military regimes, the
policy space was limited to government and quasi-government agencies with vir-
tually no room for both internal and external non-state actors. Again, the six
international consultants who were invited to be part of the -member
Evans-Anfom Education Commission did not honour the invitation. As a
result, the Commission was made up of the remaining  local members
selected from the government and its allied agencies.
However, the dire economic situation of the Ghanaian state in the early s

forced the PNDCmilitary government to turn to the IMF and theWorld Bank for
a financial bail-out. The outcome was the signing of an economic agreement (i.e.
the ERP) in  that effectively required the government to roll back its welfare
programmes and rethink the role of the state in providing education and other
social spending. This led to some limited translation of ideas during the 
education reform as the ERP agreement provided an avenue for the IMF and
World Bank to articulate the EKE policy. The World Bank and IMF articulated
these ideas through ministerial meetings, workshops and global conferences.
Thus, even though the processes leading to the  education reform were
mainly about bricolage, there was an element of translation due to the work of
the IMF and World Bank in SSA. As indicated earlier, the IMF and World
Bank were not directly involved in the  education reform. However, their
push for a paradigm shift from the nationalistic and identity-creating objectives
of education to the EKE in the Global South during the ERP negotiations in
s influenced Ghana’s  education reform. In addition, the work of
the Evans-Anfom Commission was influenced by the annual reports issued by
these Bretton Woods Institutions highlighting the need for Ghana to align its
education objectives to that of the EKE paradigm. These annual reports were
reviewed by the Commission and ultimately led to the objective of Ghana’s edu-
cation system changing to EKE, as discussed earlier. These agencies continued to
influence education reforms through their participation in government forums
such as the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI) and
the Citizens Assessment of Structural Adjustment (CASA) (Structural
Adjustment Participatory Review International Network ). Despite the
limited translation, it is important to note that it deals with the mix of exogenous
and endogenous factors to inform the  education reform, which is a key
aspect of our paper. However, in the end, we discovered that endogenous
factors associated with bricolage proved the most influential. Thus, we can say
the fact there was less translation and more bricolage does back our claim
about the greater influence of endogenous factors over exogenous factors.

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C O N C L U S I O N

This paper examines the  education reform and challenges the assertion
that reforms in Ghana and other SSA countries are mainly an imposition
from exogenous forces, particularly the IMF and World Bank. Using an idea-
tional framework, the paper has demonstrated how the Education
Commission of  employed the ideational mechanisms of bricolage and
translation to innovate and bring about the  reform. This contrasts with
the conditionality thesis, where policymaking in developing countries such as
Ghana is seen to be externally induced. As argued, the  education
reform was not an imposition from the IMF and World Bank due to the ERP
signed between them and the PNDC government in . However, endogen-
ous (domestic) factors including the demand from the Ghanaian people for
education reform and the desire of the PNDC government to introduce educa-
tion reform in line with its pro-poor and populist policies occasioned the 
education reform. These endogenous factors coincided with the demands by
the IMF and World Bank for the PNDC government to reduce its social expend-
iture including education spending as a condition for assessing loans under the
ERP agreement. While meeting such a demand was inconsistent with the objec-
tives of a pro-poor and socialist-oriented PNDC government, as discussed
earlier, the IMF and the World Bank employed ideational tools in the form of
meetings, workshops and conferences to influence the  education
reform in Ghana.
The discussion above also shows that due to the military rule at the time, the

policy space was closed to non-state actors except the teacher unions and
mission schools which provided critical services within the education system.
Nevertheless, due to the culture of silence at the time, these non-state actors
could not influence the reform process very much as the government did not
kowtow to divergent and dissenting views. However, the IMF and World Bank
were able to influence the reform process through ideational mechanisms,
and not imposition, hence the adoption of the EKE. This was done through
the issuing of country annual reports, ministerial meetings, workshops and con-
ferences that highlighted the essence of the EKE and the financial assistance
they provided countries that opted for the EKE. Here, while we reject the impos-
ition thesis, we recognise that, although endogenous factors shaped the reform,
exogenous forces also contributed to shape it through ideational instruments.
Again, the reform was characterised by both path departing and path depend-

ent change as shown in Table III. The objective of Ghana’s education system wit-
nessed a path departing change, while the content, structure and duration of
the education system saw path dependent changes. These changes were
however begun in  when the NRC military government established the
Dzobo Education Committee to reform the education system in place.
Regardless of the IMF and World Bank’s conditionality of reducing govern-
ment’s social expenditure, the  education reform maintained the free
basic education that was introduced under the  Accelerated

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Development Plan for Education (ADPE). Yet, the IMF andWorld Bank’s global
push for the EKE through ideational instruments led to path departing changes
in the objective of Ghana’s education system. Thus, the work of the Evans-
Anfom Commission was influenced by both bricolage and translation processes.

N O T E S

. These reforms were based on the recommendations of the Dzobo Committee established by the
NRC administration.
. These were conditions outlined by the IMF and World Bank, which many SSA countries had to meet

in exchange for financial assistance under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in the mid-s
(see Loxley ; Boafo-Arthur ; Konadu-Agyemang ).
. These are mostly non-state actors who sell ideas to powerful actors in politics and ensure their

implementation.
. The Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) was signed in  between the IMF and World Bank

and the PNDC government with the aim of improving Ghana’s trading position in the global economy.
. For a discussion on the  education reform see Fobi et al. () and Yankson-Mensah ().
. These are the fees tertiary students pay in Ghana for using academic facilities such as libraries and

lecture theatres.
. Tsebelis (: ) defines veto player as ‘an individual or collective actor whose agreement (by

majority rule for collective actors) is required for a change in policy’.
. This means  years of primary education,  years of middle school,  years secondary education and a

-year sixth form education.

T A B L E I I I .
Summary of the  Education Reform.

Outcome of the  Reform

Dimension Policy Change Policy Continuity

Objective Shift from the identity-creating educa-
tion system to an economic-value
focused education system

Structure

Reducing pre-tertiary education from 
years to  years by:

Abolishing middle school and th form
systems.

Introduction junior secondar school
Reducing senior secondary education
from years to years

Continued the three-tier structure (i.e.,
Basic education, secondary education
and tertiary education)

Financing Introduction of cost-sharing (fees) at the
senior secondary and tertiary levels of
educationReduction of basic education
from  years to  years

Continuation of free universal basic
educationContinuation of free secondary
education in the northern parts of Ghana

Content Junior secondary education curriculum
emphasised pre-vocational
educationSubjects reduced from  to


Continuation of subjects for primary
education

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. This means  years of primary education,  years of Junior Secondary School and  years Secondary
education. The -year Middle School was reduced to  years and renamed Junior Secondary School. The -
year Senior Secondary education was reduced by  year while the -year sixth form education was
abolished.

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Interviews

Charles Aheto-Tsegah, educationist and past director-general of Ghana Education Service (GES),
Ministries-Accra, ...

Emmanuel Acquaye, education consultant to Ministry of Education (MoE), Koforidua, ...
Eunice Ackwerh, programmes officer at the World Bank, Accra, .. .
Gifty Apanbil, president of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Ministries-Accra, .. .
Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, professor and chairman of the  Education Commission, Cape Coast,

...
Kwaku Anarfi, adonten hene and director at the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of Ministry of

Education (MoE), ...
Paul Osei-Mensah, educationist and past secretary general of Ghana National Association of Teachers

(GNAT), Spintex-Accra, ...
Samuel Dadzie, general secretary of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Accra,

...
Veronica Dzeagu, national coordinator of Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), East

Legon-Accra, ...

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A P P E N D I X . S T R U C T U R E O F F O R M A L E D U C A T I O N I N     .

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	Actors, bricolage, and translation in education policy: a case study from Ghana
	INTRODUCTION
	IDEAS, BRICOLAGE AND TRANSLATION
	METHODS
	THE MAKING OF THE 1987 EDUCATION REFORM
	KEY ACTORS AND THEIR INFLUENCE
	THE 1987 EDUCATION REFORM: STABILITY AND CHANGE
	BRICOLAGE
	TRANSLATION
	CONCLUSION
	References
	Interviews