Geography and the Tale of Two Ghanas: The North–South Divide

Abstract

Physical geography matters for development. Accordingly, development trends in Ghana are largely shaped by its geographic circumstances. Ghana—also West Africa for that matter—is not located on one of the major global trade routes, con-tributing to less favourable export market conditions. Many communities in Ghana are located in remote areas and are sparsely populated, raising the costs of basic social service delivery and infrastructure development. Most tropical zones, and those with higher precipitation levels such as the forest belt, have ecological con-ditions that favour mortal diseases such as malaria. The North (or Northern Ghana, which incorporates the Upper West, Upper East and Northern regions) has an arid environment conducive to a higher prevalence of drought and its population is known to live under harsher environmental and agricultural conditions. Economic development in Ghana cannot be separated from the country's natural resources (as previously indicated cocoa and gold account for the vast majority of exports, to which oil has begun contributing). Likewise, the country's human devel-opment is fundamentally dependent on geographic conditions. This chapter examines the scope and nature of the large disparities in educational development across the urban–rural divide, between regions and within communities. It evaluates the role that low population density and school distance play in shaping educational oppor-tunities. The education and skills gap separating the North of the country from the South is a pressing developmental problem and of particular interest in this analy-sis. It is argued here that one of the largest challenges in the education sector facing the government today lies in the improvement of the provision of services and the development of incentive packages aimed at Northerners. Given that Ghana aspires to attain universal basic education, progress and inevitably achievement will be almost entirely conditional on how effective the government but also non-governmental stakeholders are in concentrating these efforts on the marginalised North. The North–South Educational Divide Taken as a whole, possibly the most remarkable characteristic within the Ghanaian development context is the geographic divide between the North and South of the country. This divide impacts nearly all sectors and nearly all development Geography and the Tale of Two Ghanas: The North–South Divide Chapter 4 A. Krauss, External Influences and the Educational Landscape, SpringerBriefs in Economics, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-4936-2_4, © Alexander Krauss 2013 40 4 Geography and the Tale of Two Ghanas: The North–South Divide indicators. There is no exception for the education sector. Looking at the gap between these two parts of the country is therefore essential when trying to bet-ter understand why many children and young adults have no schooling or are less educated. Map 4.1, which illustrates the ten political–administrative regions in Ghana, indicates that the North lags far behind the rest of the country in terms of basic school attendance. With 15.6 % of all Ghanaian children 6–14 years of age not attending school in the country in 2008/09, the share in the North (28.4 %) is over three times higher than in the South (9.3 %). A number of geographic factors are interconnected and help to impede educational access and outcomes. In the North, where many inter-locking variables related to lower human and economic development reinforce each other, population density that is 3.6 times lower than in the South makes delivering education services more expensive and distances to school slightly farther which in turn can increase transportation costs to go to school. In 2010, 39.9 people per square kilometre lived in the North against 142.4 people in the South (national average of 100.4). Although the North accounts for 41 % of the country's land mass, it is only inhabited by 16 % of its population or 19 % of the primary-age population (6–11-year olds) based on Ghana Statistical Service data crossed with EMIS data for 2010. But, its population is not just widely and sparsely dispersed, it also must cope with climate stress that continues to intensify in this part of the country (World Bank 2010d). This, coupled with lower soil fertility and more unpredictable water and resource availability, gen-erates lower agricultural productivity and output than in southern areas, and leads to food insecurity being more precarious in the North (ibid.). As most Northerners rely on subsistence farming, the situation is aggravated and it is this dependency which increases the opportunity costs of sending children to school, as statistical analysis in Chap. 6 shows. It is also in the North where households are not only more socio-economically deprived but also have higher fertility, which combined can help limit Map 4.1 Political-administrative regions in Ghana and the educational deprivation of the North: share of 6–14-year olds who did not attend school in the academic year 2008/09 Source Author's illustration based on calculations of data from GDHS (all geographic maps throughout the analysis are made by the author using gvSIG map making software)