This project is situated in the republic of Ghana, a lower middle-income country located in West Africa, bordered by Burkina Faso, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and the Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 30 million, 40% of which are below 14 years of age, with an overall literacy rate of almost 80% that varies disparately across the various regions. Additionally, large regional disparities in levels of poverty and inequality persist (World Bank, 2019). The Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) program was introduced in 1995, while the free Senior High School (SHS) program was rolled out in 2017/18. Government spending on education has been shown to be progressive in Ghana, due to a high share of public spending on basic schools, with the majority of children making it through to junior high school, much more than in other Sub-Saharan countries (Action Aid Ghana, 2020). The Ghana Education Service, catering for 34,000 basic schools and 709 senior high schools, is the largest agency under Ghana’s Ministry of Education, responsible for the implementation of approved national pre-tertiary educational policies and programs to ensure that all Ghanian children of school-going age are provided with inclusive and equitable quality formal education without discrimination. However, despite ongoing education reform by the Ministry of Education in Ghana significant challenges regarding equity and quality in basic education remain - 80% of children still lack basic literacy and numeracy skills by the end of junior high school.

The main aim of this paper is to explore how education policies are tackling equity and social justice challenges in compulsory public education in Ghana, and how these policy priorities, in turn, are being perceived and enacted within schools.

The term ‘social justice’ in the field of education in general and particularly in schools has been the subject of much scholarly debate, resulting in a plurality of conceptions and interpretations, with no clear consensus as to what constitutes a socially just school. A significant shortcoming in the literature is the lack of say from those non-Anglophone nations not considered as geopolitically dominant (Gumus et al., 2021), leading to a reconsideration of educational systems in transitional and previously under-represented areas and their having to take the direction of Western countries. Fraser’s (2005) three-dimensional theory of social justice encompassing the economic, cultural, and political dimensions will be used as a framework to interpret the data. Distributive principles, the economic dimension, acknowledge the inequitable allocation of material aids, including exploitation, economic marginalization, and deprivation. Recognitive principles, the cultural dimension, focus on the equal acknowledgement of the historical and cultural perspectives of all groups within a particular society. Representative justice, the political dimension, gives all people the right of participation and opinion. Mifsud (2024) notes that disparities in basic education provision exist with many children still not attending school, while others are attending but not learning. ‘Which system features influence equity, or to be more precise, the provision of equitable opportunities (and hopefully equitable outcomes) in school?’ (ibid, p. 10). SDG 4 aims to safeguard access to quality education to all throughout all life stages, as well as increase the number of youths who have the relevant employment and entrepreneurship skills.

According to UNICEF (2016, p. vii), ‘Inequity is not inevitable. Inequality is a choice. Promoting equity – a fair chance for every child, for all children – is also a choice’.  This paper thus explores  the importance of context in tackling social (in)justice and (in)equity in schooling, rather than replicating ‘global’ policies in the provision of SDG4 in Ghana. This has implications for theory, policy and practice across European and international education systems.

This project will adopt a mixed-methods approach and will be carried out in two phases. Documentary analysis of the three major policy documents related to the issue under exploration will be carried out. These 3 documents are: the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (World Bank, 2019); the Social Accountability Framework For Social Protection in Ghana – Capitation Grant (Ghana Civil Society Partnership on Social Accountability for Social Protection & UNICEF Ghana, 2021), the Inclusive Education Policy (Government of Ghana, 2015), and the Education Strategic Plan 2018-2030 (Ministry of Education, 2019). This will enable an understanding of the policy priorities and the discourses driving the issue of equity in relation to SDG4 provision. It will also enable the design of the data collection tools to follow in the second phase. This project will focus on the Greater Accra Region, where there are 2327 basic and junior schools and 39 secondary schools that are government funded. Data will be collected from headteachers via a mixed-methods survey, with a sample later being invited for interviews. There will be no sampling strategy for the online surveys as this will be sent out via email to all the schools mentioned above. For the interviews, an email invite will be sent out to head teachers from around 30 schools based on different demographic areas within the Greater Accra region and also according to other variable such as socioeconomic status to have a sample from both advantaged and disadvantaged communities. The mixed method survey entails questions relating to equity and social justice practices in Ghana basic schools. The survey items will consist of a combination of close-ended and open-ended questions. For the ensuing semi - structured Interviews, headteachers will be interviewed online via MSTeams. The interview questions will enable participants to share their narratives of equity and social justice in basic schools and how this can enhance the provision of quality education in alignment with SDG4. The schools’ administration email address will be obtained from the Ghana Education Service and this will serve as the channel to invite the participants to participate in the online surveys. Ethical approval has been obtained from the University of Bath.

The intended outcomes from this project are: 1) To inform education policymaking in Ghana to gradually bridge the gap between inequity and student achievement, thus helping towards the provision of SDG4 (2) Empowering headteachers and teachers with practices that would enable more equitable and socially just education provision (3) Facilitate communities of support among headteachers in the region for the sharing of good practices, etc. (4) Initiate a dialogue between the policymakers and headteachers as the direct policy actors, while roping in other organizations that would facilitate the policy process This project is expected to make a difference at local, regional, national and international level as it will help policymakers have a better understanding of the challenges faced by education practitioners in implementing SDG4. It will also support evidence-based policymaking that is data-driven, evidence-based and research-informed. The project will also aid headteachers in their school leadership practices through the preparation of a toolkit. The evidence from the Greater Accra Region can also inform other regions, which at a later stage can help with other African countries and also internationally.

Action Aid Ghana (2020). Ghana Factsheet. Financing the future: delivering SDG4 in Ghana. Ghana: Action Aid Ghana. Fraser, N. (2005). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review, 36, 69-88. Ghana Civil Society Partnership on Social Accountability for Social Protection & UNICEF Ghana (2021). Social Accountability Framework For Social Protection in Ghana – Capitation Grant. Ghana. Government of Ghana (2015). Inclusive Education Policy. Ghana: Government of Ghana. Gumus, S., Arar, K. &. Oplatka, I. (2021). Review of international research on school leadership for social justice, equity and diversity. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 53(1), 81-99. Mifsud, D. (2024). Schooling for social justice, equity and inclusion: Problematizing theory, policy and practice. United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing. Ministry of Education (2019) Education Strategic Plan 2018-2030. Ghana: Ministry of Education. UNICEF. (2016). The state of the world's children: A fair chance for every child. New York: UNICEF. World Bank (2019). Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project. Ghana: Education Global Practice, Africa Region.