scholarly journals Exploring the Capacity of Formal School Governing Bodies in Rural Ghana: The Case of Effutu Municipality

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Robert Andrews Ghanney

<p><em>As part of wider social and democratic governance reforms, the Government of Ghana embarked on a process of education decentralization in 1987 (GOG, 1996). The central focus of this policy was the prescription of community participation in the affairs of school in each locality (Essuman &amp; Akyeampong, 2011). Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) policy recommends the formation of School Management Committees (SMCs), governing bodies and Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) by individual schools to work hand-in-hand with the head teacher and guide him/her in school policy formulation (GES, 2001). Capacity has become a topical issue in decentralisation discourse and critics of the latter have argued against the lack of technical and human resource availability at the local level (De Grauwe et al., 2005; Robinson, 2007), but unfortunately, research on capacity of formal governance bodies appears to have been less undertaken in poorer rural areas in Ghana. In recognition of this, the study sought to understand the nature and quality of capacity and how that impact on participation in school from the perspectives of SMCs in two rural school communities in Effutu Municipality. The study adopted qualitative methods of focus groups, supported by some initial documentary analysis to gain understanding of school governance from key stakeholder perspectives. The findings revealed that although formal school governing bodies existed in the rural study communities, many of the SMC members lacked human and material resource to engage fully in school management. The study recommends capacity building and training programmes to enable the SMC members upgrade their knowledge and skills in school governance.</em></p>

Author(s):  
Kalaichelvi Sivaraman ◽  
Rengasamy Stalin

This research paper is the part of Research Project entitled “Impact of Elected Women Representatives in the Life and Livelihood of the Women in Rural Areas: With Special Reference to Tiruvannamalai District, Tamil Nadu” funded by University of Madras under UGC-UPE Scheme.The 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution of India were made by the government to strengthen the position of women and to create a local-level legal foundation for direct democracy for women in both rural and urban areas. The representation for women in local bodies through reservation policies amendment in Constitution of India has stimulated the political participation of women in rural areas. However, when it’s comes to the argument of whether the women reservation in Panchayati Raj helps or benefits to the life and livelihood development of women as a group? The answer is hypothetical because the studies related to the impact of women representatives of Panchayati Raj in the life and livelihood development of women was very less. Therefore, to fill the gap in existing literature, the present study was conducted among the rural women of Tiruvannamalai district to assess the impact of elected women representatives in the physical and financial and business development of the women in rural areas. The findings revealed that during the last five years because of the women representation in their village Panjayati Raj, the Physical Asset of the rural women were increased or developed moderately (55.8%) and Highly (23.4%) and the Financial and Business Asset of the rural women were increased or developed moderately (60.4%) and Highly (18.7%).


Author(s):  
Per Tidemand

This paper summarises key findings from a comprehensive analysis commissioned by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) of the nature of decentralisation in the three East African countries: Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.The specific objectives of the study were:• Provide a basic comparative analysis of the forms and processes of decentralisation reforms in the three countries• Analyse the specific modalities in the three countries for local service delivery planning and provision within the three sectors of basic education, primary health care and agricultural extension, with a particular emphasis on rural areas. TIDEMAND: Local level service delivery, decentralisation and governance: A comparative study of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania CJLG May 2009 145• Explore the impact of the specific forms of decentralisation and local level service delivery arrangements in terms of efficiency, accountability (transparency) and democratic process (participation).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nargiz Phalavandishvili ◽  
◽  
Natalia Robitashvili ◽  
Ekaterine Bakhtadze ◽  
◽  
...  

Ajara Autonomous Republic, both within the country and in the world tourist market, has always been positioned as a maritime tourist destination. However, over recent years diversification of tourist products and appealing new market segments have become one of the main priorities of the tourism development strategy of Ajara Autonomous Republic. As a result, the government is creating an appropriate tourist infrastructure, especially in rural areas to support developing such tourist products as adventure and eco-tourism. Adventure tourism can deliver significant benefits at the local level and it is a developing segment in Ajara. Creating adventure tourism products requires integration of various interdependent services. A tourism value chain is defined as a system that describes the cooperation of private and state sectors in providing resources, which creates costs and adds value through various processes and delivers final products to visitors. The purpose of the research was to determine weak links in the value chain and creating a comprehensive value chain model to form the competitive adventure tourism product. The research involved all actors, which operate in the tourism sector. Based on the results of the survey, in the value chain, the food link turned out to be the weakest, whereas the accommodation with the highest share was distinguished in the visitor spending structure. Overall, the cost of the adventure tour will be affordable for both international and domestic tourists. At this stage, government support and participation are crucial in the formation of adventure tourism infrastructure. Through using the case study and qualitative research methods, we tried to identify challenges to the growth of adventure tourism in Ajara and developed recommendations to overcome these challenges.


2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Maconachie

ABSTRACTSierra Leone has recently emerged from a long period of political instability and civil war, and is ranked among the world's poorest countries. Thousands of displaced people are in the process of returning to their villages to rebuild their mainly farming-based livelihoods, and many are growing food crops for the first time in a decade. With pressure on food production increasing in rural areas, the inland valley swamps have been identified by the government as a vital resource for sustaining rural livelihoods and achieving food security through the production of rice and other commodities. However, previous government policies directed at enhanced wetland production have largely failed to achieve their goals, and have been criticised for neglecting the institutional challenges of development. Drawing on recent fieldwork carried out in two rural communities in the Eastern Province, this paper considers how institutional arrangements function in Sierra Leone's swamp wetlands, and explores how stresses associated with a post-conflict environment are shaping land-use decisions and mediating access to resources in new ways. The findings of the enquiry have implications for Sierra Leone's recently adopted commitment to decentralisation, a move that has, in theory, seen the state strengthen its position at the local level, and will allegedly create new spaces for increased interaction between state agencies, traditional leaders and communities. Two institutional challenges are examined – access to land and access to labour – that must be addressed if decentralised reforms to resource management are to be effective for wetland rice production. The analysis concludes by considering one recent initiative at the forefront of efforts to decentralise the Ministry of Agriculture, the ‘Agricultural Business Unit’ (ABU) initiative, to elucidate some of the challenges faced in post-conflict wetland rehabilitation.


Author(s):  
Frasiah Wangari Mburu ◽  
Alice W. Kamau ◽  
Stephen M. Macharia

Despite heavy investments in training and development, low-quality education standards and challenges in management practices have been a sticky problem in the Kenyan education sector. Organization Theory guided the main aim of this study in establishing the relationship between management policies and transfer of skills for public secondary school headteachers in schools management. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The study population comprised 226 headteachers.  A mixture of stratified random sampling and census study was adopted in sampling 69 respondents. The results established that management policies explained a 23.4% variation in the transfer of skills for school heads. ?1 = 0.536 and p-value = 0.000 (p<0.05) indicated that management policies had positive and significant effects on transfer of skills. The study established that unsupportive policies like the Students Council, two centers of power, strict policies, and lack of inclusivity in policy formulation adversely affected school heads in implementing learned skills. The study recommends fair representation of all categories of education stakeholders in policies review and formulation to alleviate challenges associated with management policies to enhance the transfer of skills. The Government should address the issue of two centers of power in the public basic education sector. The paper sought to call the attention of the professional development trainers to exercise follow-ups to assess post-training behavioral outcomes in the context of organizational climate.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siti Masithoh ◽  
Titik Sumarti ◽  
Tri Pranadji

The issues of food security and poverty are basically two important points that have a strong relation to rural community development. A study was conducted to understand more on the depth of the relation between food security and local initiatives development. The aim of this research is to figure out how small peasant households build their institutions as they react to fulfill food security needs. The study is also to understand what type of intervention programs have been developed by the government and community, especially those concentrating in rural food-security. The study also seeks to find the answer of how deep had the peasants’ interest and initiatives been considered to be important part of food-security development program. Las but not least it was devoted to identify the current state of food-security situation of peasant’s household in rural areas. The research was carried out in Jambakan Village, Bayat Sub-district of Central Java Province. The method used in this study was community study (through survey and qualitative approaches and case study). The results of the study are: the implementation of food self reliant village program run by the government was not quite successful to accomplish due to governance problematic at local level. Some key factors explaining the relationship between the successfulness of the program and food security’s achievements are technical assistance, community organizers, trust, and leadership


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
Eliada Werungu Bina Tieng’o

Despite the involvement of community participation in various development projects over the years in Tanzania, little is known of its implications on sustainability of fee free basic education in rural public primary schools. A mixed method exploratory approach, informed by ecological systems theory, employed questionnaires, FGD and interview schedules to selected parents and School Management Committee members of public primary schools in Rorya District, Tanzania. The study focused on the value of public primary school education, advantages of Fee Free primary education, perceptions of parents and School Management Committee members on community participation and relationship between parent’s perception on the value of public primary education and participation in project-based support to education. The respondents exhibited heterogeneous negative perceptions with a positive correlation between parent’s perception on the value of public primary education and participation in project-based support to education (r =.510, p=000<0.01). The larger majority 64.3% of parent respondents with grade 7 education was deemed a factor that influenced negative perception. The researcher recommends that the Government authorities need to impart community economic productivity skills; the District Authorities further need to conduct community awareness on the importance of participation. Finally, the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the other stakeholders should mobilize funds and sensitize communities on the value of primary education and the importance of their participation in community development programs to support education.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Mears ◽  
P. F. Blaauw

Purpose/objectives: The aim of this paper is to obtain a better understanding of the income and expenditure patterns of selected deep rural villages. This is done by measuring the level of poverty and/or the poverty gap of 132 households in Limpopo, one of the poorest provinces in South Africa. Problem investigated: The Millennium Declaration symbolises the commitment to end extreme poverty, but limited data is available for rural areas to inform policy decisions. The relative income shares for individuals, households and percentile groups within a population provide the best information on poverty for policy formulation. The nature and size distribution of income are therefore central to analysing the poverty problem within low-income areas. The survey area is one of the poorest areas in South Africa, and shows what data is needed to measure and understand the extent of poverty. Design/Method/Approach: A representative sample of 132 households was drawn, which represents 6,9 percent of the estimated 1900 households in selected villages of rural Limpopo. A total of 740 household members were represented in the survey, with an average of 5,6 members per household. Originality/Value: Although this is a relatively small sample, it generated much-needed data on this very poor area of South Africa. Detailed empirical data on the income and expenditure patterns is not available, especially for rural areas. The socio-economic data from this research supported an important health project of the Water and Health Research Unit (WHRU) of the University of Johannesburg. The article also lays the foundation for further research in this field of study, facilitating engagement with a number of related debates such as those about satisfaction of life, vulnerability to poverty, the geography of deprivation and the mapping of poverty. Conclusion: The main finding is that the government provides for many needs of the poor, especially in the deep rural areas. Only 18 percent of the sample households did not receive a state grant in 2007. This was an injection of R88 800 or 33,4 percent of the total income per month, which excludes the social wage in terms of free basic water, electricity, subsidised or free housing, health care subsidies and other support to poor people and rural communities. Of the 485 non-economically active people in the sample, more than 364 or 75 percent receive an income, mainly in the form of state grants. Education suggests itself as a route out of poverty, rather than the child grant and other subsidies that encourage poor people to have more children. Poor couples and single-member households fall through the safety net, because they do not qualify for state grants and have no children yet.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pashupati Nepal ◽  
Narendra Raj Khanal ◽  
Bishnu Prasad Pangali Sharma

This paper is a review of policies for disaster risk management in Nepal and discusses the strengths, gaps and constraints of the same. Institutional and Legislative Systems (ILS) approach has been adopted focusing on three aspects: i) legal and regulatory frameworks, ii) policies and programs, and iii) organizational/institutional set-up. This paper concludes that newly endorsed Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act (2017) can be a milestone in disaster management of Nepal not only because it has replaced about 40 years old Natural Calamity (Relief) Act, 1982 but also for the first time, it saw disaster risk management as an process focusing on different stages of disaster management cycles, preparedness, response and rehabilitation and mitigation. The provision of well-structured functional institutional set-up from the centre to local level can have positive outcome in disaster management. However, it overlooks significant aspect, such as the declaration of disaster-prone zones limiting the right of provincial disaster management committee only for recommendation to the Government of Nepal. Most of policies, strategies and legislations focused on some specific disasters such as flood, landslide, earthquake and GLOF/avalanches at national level paying less emphasis to the local level. Even now, most of the policy interventions towards different cycles of disaster risk management have laid emphasis on preparedness and response rather than to rehabilitation and mitigation. The conflicting provisions in Acts such as Water Resource Act (1992) and Building Act (1998) with Local Government Operation Act (2017) have made overlapping of their roles and responsibilities. So, the policy formulation and institutional set-up needs to be complemented by the ability and competence to operationalize the intent of the relevant acts and policies at all levels of government.The Geographical Journal of NepalVol. 11: 1-24, 2018 


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Muhamad Nur ◽  
Khasan Effendy ◽  
M. Aries Djaenuri ◽  
Sampara Lukman

Abstract The administration of government requires a way of maximizing government management to achieve good governance to realize the welfare of the people and constitute demands of the constitution at the Preamble of the fourth Alenia 1945 Constitution. Article 31 of the 1945 Constitution states that Education is the right of every citizen, and the government and regional government guarantees the implementation of the national education system by Law Number 20 of 2003. This research aims to examine and analyze the effect of the implementation of supervisory policies, apparatus competencies, and culture organization of supervision performance in the field of primary education. The method used in this research is quantitative with open and closed questionnaires. The results of this study indicate that the causality relationship partially or simultaneously between the Implementation of Supervision Policy, Apparatus Competency, and Bureaucratic Culture to the Supervision Performance of the Basic Education Sector is entirely "positive and significant." Thus, the four hypotheses of this research are "accepted." Then, the results of the distribution of scores indicate that all dimensions of the variable values ​​are higher than 90% and can be categorized as "Good." Based on the two analyzes, it can be stated that the Supervision Performance of the Basic Education Field held by the City of Depok, West Java Province is "Good." Conclusion This study shows that the Performance of Oversight in Basic Education goes well. This is evidenced by all four accepted hypotheses, and a positive and significant causality relationship. This was obtained by models and concepts in the field of education supervision. With the findings of the Actual Oversight Model, it is recommended for the government that this model can be used as input for the supervision policy formulation, Work Standards Criteria (KSK), and Education Supervision Performance Indicators (IKPP). Keywords: Actual Oversight Model, Educational Oversight, Apparatus Competency, Organizational Culture, Oversight Performance.


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