IMPACT OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT'S DEFICIT ON PUBLIC TERTIARY EDUCATION FUNDING IN GHANA

Abstract

From the era of Ghana’s independence, various governments, particularly Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s Administration, considered the importance of education as a tool for socio-economic engineering and national development. Successive governments have all tried their best when it comes funding for tertiary education Ghana. Funding is a central pillar in the growth and development of any tertiary education in Ghana. The Ghana Government funds public universities through annual budgetary allocations with a view of achieving its national goals. Over the years, demand for university education in Ghana has increased exponentially, thereby triggering growth. However, annually the government instead of incurring surplus rather incurs deficit. This trend has a negative toll on public tertiary education immensely. It is argued sometimes these public tertiary education set up are forced to operate with an element of financial distress. Moreover, the presence of financial trouble in public universities has led to limited growth. Hence the paper sought to assess the Impact of the Central Government's Deficit on Public Tertiary Education Funding in Ghana.The paper resorted to the use of exploratory and qualitative research paradigm taking into account the use of secondary data for analysis. The outcome revealed that there exist funding challenges leading to yearly deficit burdening the government which also affect the growth of tertiary educational institutions in Ghana. Further, the findings also revealed that the problems with internally generated funds greatly influence tertiary education, in terms of enrollment, expenditure, the various sources of finance available to students as well as infrastructural development, research and faculty development, and even the promotion of technology.