Search

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.)

Consistent with Convention 87 of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Section 79 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651) empowers every employee in an organization to either form or join a trade union of their choice for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests. In spite of this legal provision, union coverage and density in Ghana have continually declined in recent years. The decline in union density and coverage is likely to decrease the collective bargaining strength of unions. It is against this background that our study seeks to examine the effect of unions' bargaining (proxied by union presence variable) on wages in Ghana. We employ the Heckman Selection Model and quantile regression technique to analyze data extracted from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 6) and 2015 Ghana Labour Force Survey (GLFS 2015) respectively. The findings indicate that unions' bargaining effect on wages is positive. Furthermore, the study finds that the union wage premium is highest at the lowest point of the wage distribution (25th quantile) but lowest at the highest point of the wage distribution (75th quantile). Whilst the study acknowledges the importance of education in earnings determination, we recommend that low-wage employees in a non-union establishment should join a trade union in order to earn a living/decent wage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study seeks to examine women's participation in Ghana's extractive growth-driven economy and the quality of this participation in terms of employment status and earnings relative to their male counterparts and establish whether these differences constitute discrimination for policy attention. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts both quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches to assess the extent of gender inequality in employment and earnings in the Ghanaian extractive sector and the sources of these differences. It computes three segregation indices to ascertain the degree of unequal gender distribution of employment based on nationally representative labour force and living standards surveys followed by quantitative analysis of gender earnings differences using Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition technique. This is complemented by the results of Focus Group Discussion to go behind the numbers and examine the sources of the employment and earnings differences between men and women in extractive activities. Findings: The authors observe lower participation of women in the extractive sector, with a considerable degree of gender segregation and existence of gender earnings gap in favour of men due to differences in observable characteristics such as age, education and occupational skills. There is also evidence of existence of discrimination against women and indication of barriers that impede women's involvement in high-earning extractive activities in Ghana. The study suggests measures to remove these barriers and improve women's education particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to address the gender imbalance in extractive activities in Ghana. Social implications: Women's low involvement in the strong extractive growth-driven process has implication for undermining the effort of empowering women economically. Originality/value: The study draws argument from the literature and adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques to establish gender in terms of employment distribution and earnings in favour of males in the Ghanaian extractive sector. This has the effect of undermining women's economic empowerment and exacerbating gender inequality in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The periods between post-discharge and full recovery can be challenging for most patients, since they have to be on self-care as they work their way back to full recovery. This study aimed to find out the experiences of discharged patients on self-care subsequent to major medical surgery at the Central Regional Teaching Hospital in Ghana. The study is informed by the qualitative research design. Experiences of twenty participants who had undergone surgery and were continuing with the recovery regimen at home were tapped into as the sample for the study. Purposive sampling technique was also adopted in selecting ten clinicians from the surgical ward to ascertain what went into preparing discharged patients to care for themselves at home after major medical surgery. Based on the findings of the study it was concluded that education, residential status, marital status, and availability and ability to convert social network into social capital constitute major social determinants of self-care. It was recommended among others that the social determinants of self-care identified above should inform plans aimed at preparing patients better to continue the recovery process on their own at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 assess the changing pattern and direction of sex segregation of occupation as a measure of unbalanced distribution of occupation by sex in Ghana between 1960 and 2010, identify the sources of the changes and show whether female-male earnings difference has changed in line with the changes in occupational segregation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies two segregation indices to data from population censuses and household surveys in the empirical analysis Findings – The outcome of the segregation measure indicates a generally modest to high but declining occupational sex segregation in Ghana over a period of five decades. Sex composition and occupational mix effects are found to be the underlying drivers of the declining segregation with the former coming up strongly during the initial 40 years. This has, however, not translated into narrowing female-male earnings gap. Practical implications – The paper recommends measures towards economic transformation for a change in occupational structure backed by implementation of education policy to enhance female access to male-dominated science and engineering programmes and employment in high-skill occupations. Originality/value – The strength of the paper is seen from its originality as it is the first attempt to assess changing pattern of occupational segregation over a long period of five decades with consistent and comparable data sources. [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]

Unemployment is often cited as a measure of the low employment content of Ghana's strong growth performance over the past three decades. The paper presents evidence to suggest that employment growth in Ghana continues to trail economic growth due to high growth of low employment generating sectors against sluggish growth of high labour absorption sectors. A cross-sectional estimation of a probit regression model also indicates a strong effect of demand factors on unemployment, indicating a weak employment generating impact of economic growth. Empirical analysis also confirms higher vulnerability of youth and urban dwellers to unemployment with education and gender explaining unemployment in some instances. Reservation wage is also observed to have an increasing effect of unemployment. The paper recommends policies that promote investment in agriculture and manufacturing which is associated with higher employment elasticity of output. High incidence of unemployment among the youth and secondary school leavers in the most recent period requires targeted intervention including support for entrepreneurial training and start-up capital to attract young school leavers to become 'creators' rather than 'seekers' of jobs. A downward review of expectations on the part of jobseekers in terms of their reservation wage could help reduce unemployment in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study re-examines the McKinnon-Shaw financial liberalization hypothesis, which posits simply that high real deposit interest rates increase financial savings, which in turn lead to increase in the quantity and quality of domestic investment. More specifically, the study investigates the impact of interest rate deregulation on investment in Ghana and the transmission mechanism through which this could happen. Utilizing cointegration and error correction model techniques with data for the period 1970-2005, the study's findings are as follows. While the study finds a statistically significant and positive relationship between real deposit interest rate and financial savings as well as between bank credit and financial savings, the net effect of a real deposit rate on investment is found to be negative. In other words, holding all other variables constant, a higher real deposit rate which leads to a higher increase in financial savings and then bank credit, is offset by a higher cost of lending, thus making the net effect on investment negative. In this regard, the findings do not seem to provide support for the McKinnon-Shaw financial liberalization hypothesis. Other variables found to be important in explaining investment in Ghana are the financial deepening, macroeconomic volatility that is proxied by inflation differential and the lagged change in GDP, affirming the accelerator model principle. The findings therefore have important policy implications for the on-going financial sector reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wealth data are typically obtained by asking respondents about the value of their key assets. Yet, what if the answers to valuation questions vary systematically depending on who is interviewed? Using nationally representative data from Ghana and Ecuador and for the state of Karnataka, India, we analyze whether men and women provide different responses to questions about the monetary value of their home. Using a DFL decomposition across the full sample and comparing the responses of husbands and wives in our couple sample, we find that overall, the distribution of monetary values reported by women tends to be narrower than that reported by men. This finding has implications both for data collection efforts and for measures of the gender wealth gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wastewater discharge into the environment in resource-poor countries poses a threat to public health. Studies in this area within these countries are limited, and the use of high-throughput whole-genome sequencing technologies is lacking. Therefore, understanding of environmental impacts is inadequate. The present study investigated the antibiotic resistance profiles and diversity of beta-lactamases in Escherichia coli strains isolated from environmental water sources in Accra, Ghana. Microbiological analyses were conducted on wastewater samples from three hospitals, a sewage and wastewater treatment plant, and water samples from two urban surface water bodies. Confirmed isolates (N = 57) were selected for phenotypic antibiotic resistance profiles. Multi-drug-resistant isolates (n = 25) were genome sequenced using Illumina MiSeq sequencing technology and screened for sequence types, antibiotic resistance, virulence and beta-lactamase genes, and mobile genetic elements. Isolates were frequently resistant to ampicillin (63%), meropenem (47%), azithromycin (46%), and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (42%). Twenty different sequence types (STs) were identified, including clinically relevant ones such as ST167 and ST21. Five isolates were assigned to novel STs: ST14531 (n = 2), ST14536, ST14537, and ST14538. The isolates belonged to phylogroups A (52%), B1 (44%), and B2 (4%) and carried β-lactamase (TEM-1B, TEM-1C, CTX-M-15, and blaDHA-1) and carbapenemase (OXA-1, OXA-181) resistance genes. Dominant plasmid replicons included Col440I (10.2%) and IncFIB (AP001918) (6.8%). Polluted urban environments in Accra are reservoirs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, posing a substantial public health risk. The findings underscore the need for targeted public health interventions to mitigate the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and protect public health., Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have no competing interests., (Copyright: © 2024 Tettey et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)