Prevailing Status of Educational Process Factors in Junior High Schools in the Central Region of Ghana

Abstract

Globally, there is the quest to improve quality education as highlighted by the Sustainable Development Goal 4. One of the quintessential factors that could facilitate the attainment of this global goal is effective and adequate educational process factors. The study specifically sought to assess the state of educational process factors such as teacher use of instructional time, level of parental and community involvement, type of leadership, curriculum coverage among the urban, rural, public, and private junior high schools in the Central Region of Ghana. The descriptive survey design was used to carry out the study. Through stratified sampling technique, 1260 respondents comprising 126 head teachers, and 378 junior high school teachers were engaged in the study. Two sets of questionnaires were designed for the headteachers and teachers. Data gathered were analysed using frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations as well as chi-square test of association and independent samples t-test. It was found that educational process factors were generally better in urban schools as well as private schools. For rural schools and public schools, the educational process factors were poor, particularly, the percentage of syllabus coverage was low for English, Mathematics, and Integrated Science. It was concluded that deficit in educational process factors posed threat to the quality of education. It was suggested that the Ministry of Education, together with teachers should strive to enhance process variables in schools.