The Impact of Government Funding on Students’ Academic Performance in Ghana

Abstract

High academic performance in senior high education is a significant issue that concerns the government and the people of Ghana because of the huge funding the government provides to schools in the form of progressive free senior high policy. Data starting from 2011/2012 to 2016/2017 academic years were picked from the students’ continuous assessment register which contains students’ academic records for each academic term. Data were collated and analyzed quantitatively using the Mann Whitney U Test to compare students’ academic performance during the period of government partial funding (progressive free policy) from 2014/2015 to 2016/2017 academic years forming a group and no funding period, starting from 2011/2012 to 2013/2014 academic years which formed another group. For the purpose of this study, two groups of twenty (20) students were sampled making forty (40) students in total using the systematic sampling technique. The Mann Whitney U test was used to analyze academic performance of students who benefited from funding and those that do not benefit from funding. The findings indicate that government funding (progressive free policy) has a greater impact on students’ academic performance.