Perspectives on types of schools from Ghana and Pakistan: revisiting the relationship between intergenerational poverty and education

The policy brief aims to investigate the perceptions of youth and parents in making school choices and the schooling experience that comes about as a result with particular emphasis on educational outcomes such as higher living standards. Public Private Partnerships and educational outcomes for the Poor (P3EOP) project derived data from qualitative study conducted in Charsadda in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sargodha in Punjab, Pakistan and three districts within Ghana. The analysis indicates that although youth and parents share similar views regarding the role played by education in shaping a person’s life and instilling values, divergent views are presented in regards to the positive outcomes that result from education.  

While parents strongly believe that school type and choice impacts the ability of student to exploit opportunities in future, the youth believes that school experience is more significant in influencing educational outcomes as opposed to school choice. Private schools are regarded as providers of quality education by parents whereas the data indicates that student from both public and private schools face lack of resources, under-funding  high teacher turnover and physical and verbal violence. The divergent views arise as a lack of information on part of parents who are unaware of the inherent weaknesses within the educational sector at large. The study recommends that there is a need to transform the schooling system so that better educational outcomes are achieved. Counseling units and channels of communication must be established that can allow information to be transmitted between teachers, parents and students and therefore reduce divergence of views and allow stakeholders to make informed decisions.