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ODL (Open and Distance Learning) has come to stay. In recent years, there has been some extra-ordinary increasing international interest in it and Ghana is no exception. Currently, new ways of providing education are inevitable and ODL provides an effective alternate way. It represents approaches that focus on opening access to education and learning, freeing learners from the constraints of time and place and offering flexible learning opportunities to individuals/group. To the distant learner, ODL means increased access and flexibility and the combination of work and education. Many countries are trying to use ODL as a strategy for opening access to education. Inadequate infrastructure and professional competence in ODL serve as barriers. The study was designed to examine how learners can gain access to and success in learning. Again, it sought to ascertain some technologies which could be used to improve existing conditions at the IDL (Institute of Distance Learning), KNUST. The questionnaire was administered to 200 students and 20 facilitators. Stratified sampling was employed. The facilitators were interviewed. Lessons learnt include the fact that ODL will be an important element of future education and training. The emergent picture was that even though students use some computers, it could be extended to embrace other technologies, such as video conferencing, phone counseling and writing examinations on line so as to curtail any cultural and social barriers. It is worth noting that information could support the quality/variety of existing educational structures which enhance and consolidate capacity. Hopefully, usage of electronic information technologies in ODL would enhance retrieval/storage and distribution of information. It would also increase facilitation/communication among learners, facilitators and stakeholders in providing lifelong education. (Contains 2 tables.)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of education on migration decisions focusing on rural and urban in-migrants by comparing the 2005/2006 and 2012/2013 rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS5 and GLSS6). After correcting for selectivity bias, the authors observed that anticipated welfare gain and socio-economic variables such as sector of employment, sex, experience, age, educational level and marital status significantly affect an individual’s migration decision. Design/methodology/approach – The authors made use of Sjaastad’s (1962) human capital framework as a basis for examining the impact of education on migration. The migration decision equation was based on the Heckman two stage procedure. Findings – While educational attainment is observed to have a positive effect on migration decision in the period 2005/2006, the authors find a negative effect of educational attainment on migration decision in the period 2012/2013. The effect of educational attainment on migration decision in 2005/2006 for urban in-migrant is higher than the effect for rural in-migrant, with its significance varying for the different stages of educational attainment. In absolute terms, whereas the effect of secondary educational attainment on migration decisions for urban in-migrant is higher than that of rural in-migrant, the reverse holds for higher educational attainment during the period 2012/2013. Social implications – Based on the mixed effect of education on migration decision as evident from the study, policies to enhance the educational system in Ghana should be complemented with job creations in the entire country. Moreover, special attention should be given to the rural sector in such a way that the jobs to be created in the sector do not require skilled workers. With quality education and job creation, the welfare of individuals living in urban and rural areas will be enhanced. Originality/value – In spite of the importance of education in migration decisions, there is scanty literature on the rural-urban dimension. To the best of the author’s knowledge there is no literature in the Ghanaian context which examines the rural and urban perspective of the impact of education on migration with a much recent data. Further, the author consider how the determinants of migration decision have changed over time focusing on rural and urban perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the causes of unemployment in Ghana from both labour demand and supply perspectives based on most recent cross sectional data set from one nationally representative household survey and a baseline survey for Millennium Development Support. Design/methodology/approach – A logit regression estimation technique is applied to two different household survey data sets of 2008 and 2013 to capture the effect of labour demand and supply on unemployment. Findings – Using education and age as capability variables to represent supply factors, unemployment is found to increase with education, and declines with age, confirming higher unemployment rate among the youth, than the old. The paper also observes strong influence of demand factors on unemployment based on relatively higher incidence of unemployment fulltime jobseekers relative to part-time jobseekers and seekers of formal or wage-employment and self-employment or SMEs compared with those seeking any job. Other factors such as the individual’s reservation wage, marital status, sex and poverty status as well as their rural-urban location are also found to cause unemployment in Ghana. Practical implications – Unemployment as a result of the inability of individuals to obtain a job of their choice in the midst of strong economic growth in Ghana suggests weak employment content of growth. In contrast, an increasing phenomenon of unemployment with education also reflects a problem of skill mismatch between skills churn out by education and training institutions and skills requirement by firms in the labour market. Originality/value – The originality of the paper and its contribution to existing literature largely emanate from the inclusion of demand factors in a cross sectional analysis of causes of unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the role of search effort in the transition from unemployment to employment is not contentious, there is paucity of empirical evidence on the nexus between search effort and the duration of unemployment, especially in developing countries. Hence, this paper focuses on the time period in which the individual exits unemployment, using search intensity as a key explanatory variable. Data for the study is sourced from a survey of 404 formal sector workers in Accra who secured their first employment from 2005 and 2012. We disaggregated the transition period into three intervals namely; less than 1 month, between 1 and 12 months and more than 12 months, in order to achieve this objective. Using the multinomial logistic regression, we found that the use of multiple methods (search intensity) in the search process has a highly significant (p<0.001) effect on the probability of entering employment. In particular, using two additional methods decrease the probability of finding employment in less than 1 month by 11.4 percentage points but raises the prospect of entering into employment in the 1-12 months period by 9.8 percentage points. Other variables that significantly explain the duration of unemployment include age, years of schooling, sector of employment (private sector), family support and the year of employment. The paper concludes with a recommendation to realign the Labor Market Information System to the dynamics of the labor market [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire of workers to engage in moonlighting, a phenomenon of multiple job-holding is a reflection of some of the changing labour market outcomes. Public sector workers who suffered loss of jobs through public sector retrenchment and privatisation as part of Ghana's economic reform resorted to holding more than one job to earn enough to avert any substantial drop in their living conditions. Despite the seemingly conspicuous existence of multiple job-holding in Ghana, much remains to be learnt about its determinants and characteristics of the phenomenon. This article employs the probit regression estimation technique based on the two most recent nationwide household surveys conducted in 1998/99 and 2005/06 to investigate the main determinants of moonlighting in Ghana. It provides empirical evidence to suggest that personal and household characteristics as well as location and labour market characteristics such as individual earnings and hours spent in the main job significantly influence an individual's desire to engage in more than one job. The study concludes that apart from the financial motive that drives an individual's decision to moonlight, the engagement of moonlighting on account of lower working hours in the individual's main job could be a symptom of visible or time-related underemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]