Parents' preferred locus of responsibility for funding secondary education: A case study of Assin districts of Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out parents' preferred locus of responsibility for funding secondary education and whether these loci differ by type of community. Six research questions and five hypotheses were formulated to direct the study. A total sample of 509 parents from 13 communities were involved in the study. These consisted of 162, 163 and 184 respondents from urban, semi-urban and rural areas respectively. The stratified, systematic and simple random sampling techniques were employed to select the communities, houses and subjects for the study. The instrument used for the study was the questionnaire. The data collected were analysed using frequencies and ANOV A. The main findings of the study were that: 1. Seventy eight percent (78%) of the respondents support the idea of shared responsibility for funding secondary education. 2. Over 97% of the respondents have positive perception of secondary education. 3. Over 75% of the respondents prepare for their wards' secondary education. 4. Almost 61 % of the respondents support the positive discriminatory fee paying idea. It was realised in the study that parents in the Assin districts are willing to bear part of the cost of their wards' secondary education obviously because they recognise the benefits of it to the individual and the society. This preferred locus of responsibility holds true to the urban, semi-urban and rural communities. It is recommended to the Assin districts extension service units of Ministry of Food and Agriculture to educate parents in the districts on affordable methods of farming in order to increase their yields to earn more income. It is also recommended to Ahenkro, Assinman and Akoti Rural Banks and the Assin Foso branch of Agricultural Development Bank to extend financial assistance to farmers to enable them go into large scale farming to boost their income.