Financing education: Who holds the purse strings?

Once upon a time, in the Republic of Ghana, there was a magical kingdom called “Education.

” It promised riches, wisdom and social mobility. But alas! Every time the kingdom needed food (read: funding), it looked east, west, north and south, not inward. Instead of hunting in its forest, it stretched out a golden bowl and whispered to the world, “Please, Sir, may I have some more?”

This, cherished reader, is the curious case of Ghana’s reliance on external aid to finance education.

Let’s be clear: aid has helped. It has built classrooms, paid teacher salaries and printed textbooks.

But when does help become a habit? And worse, when does that habit become a handicap?

Donor dependency

Each year, Ghana's education sector gets a “pep talk” from its national budget. But before the money arrives, in comes the International Donor Squad—a well-meaning group of development partners who arrive with their spreadsheets, smiles and now and then, their unsolicited advice.

The Global Partnership for Education, UNAIDS, UNICEF, USAID and the World Bank have all contributed generously.

But while Ghana gets the funds, it often comes with strings, ropes and the occasional invisible chain. One donor insists on digital tools, another wants an early childhood focus, while a third says, “Let’s throw in gender equality metrics and LGBTQ+, etc. too!”

Meanwhile, Atokpa in Ve-Koloenu just wants a functional chalkboard. 

Who pays?

Let’s take Ghana’s darling Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy. A fantastic idea! Every Ghanaian child deserves a chance to learn without their parents auctioning livestock.

But free things aren’t actually free. Somebody, somewhere, pays. And usually, that “somebody” is a donor or lender.

The Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP) is a World Bank education operation in Ghana using a results-based financing approach. Great?

Yes. Sustainable? Questionable.

Because when repayment time comes, Ghana doesn’t just pay money; Ghana pays in sovereignty, in choices lost and in budgets restructured under polite pressure.

Begging bowls

Here is an interesting image: a student studying economics in Accra, learning about “domestic revenue mobilisation,” while his tuition is funded by a Russian taxpayer. Irony 101.

Overdependence on aid sends the wrong signal.

It suggests Ghana cannot finance its own children’s dreams.

Worse, it undermines novelty or innovation.

Why reform tax systems or plug leakages, when Uncle Aid will write the cheque?

Imagine a family spending more money printing donation letters than baking meat pies to sell.

That is our plight: writing project proposals for education instead of finding smart, homegrown ways to fund it.

But What If We Got Creative? Ghana is no stranger to creativity.

We turned the black star into a global brand.

We invented Azonto. So why can’t we reimagine education finance?

What if every corporate tax-dodging giant were required to adopt a school, not just in a corporate social responsibility brochure but with real cash?

What if Parliamentarians, instead of building one million billboards with their faces, each pledged to digitise one classroom?

Even better, let’s monetise the Ghanaian funeral economy (worth billions!) with an “educational tribute tax.”

Auntie Akua might hesitate (or not) to buy that 12th funeral cloth if she knew it would help fund science labs.

Supplementary

To set the records straight, we are not saying donors are villains.

They have filled in the gaps when we could not.

But aid should supplement effort, not substitute ambition.

We need policies that prioritise education in budget allocations, mechanisms to track leakages and taxes that truly get paid.

We need to trust in our ability to fund our future.

After all, if we can't invest in our children, whose children are we planning for?

Final lesson

Now, the next time you see a school building with a donor’s logo bigger than the national crest, chuckle, then think: Who is really schooling whom?

The chalk is in our hands now. It’s time to write a new financing formula—one where Ghana leads the class, not just copies the answers from the donor sitting next to us.

Dr James Attah Ansah is an Educationist and Author.

Email: esem1ansah@gmail.com 
Email: ekornunye@gmail.com