Market Intelligence Brief for Ghana now available

by Olivia Ryan
30/07/2020
Higher Education Institutions

Ghana is a West African country with a population of 31 million – 57 per cent of which is under the age of 25 – that is growing at a rate of 2.2 per cent annually. While the country’s economy will be hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and the oil price crash in early 2020, it had recovered well from a fiscal crisis in 2015 and growth is expected to bounce back in 2021. Ghana’s strong economic growth for nearly two decades has been driven by its exports of gold, oil and agricultural products.

The Ghanaian government places strong emphasis on education and there has been great progress in meeting Sustainable Development Goals. Literacy among the 15-24 age group has increased to 92.5 per cent, up from 86 per cent in 2010, and well above the sub-Saharan African average of 75 per cent. In 2017, the government granted free access to secondary high school, which boosted enrolment by 43 per cent.

The increasing number of students completing secondary education in Ghana has led to a surge in demand for higher education over the last decade, but local provision is unable to cope with the rising number of students. This, combined with the growing middle class, has pushed many students to study abroad. The UK is the third most popular destination for outbound Ghanaian tertiary students, behind China and the US. Three-quarters of Ghanaian students in the UK are on postgraduate programmes.

In this Market Intelligence Brief, dive into Ghana’s demographics, economics and education system. This West African country will continue to be an important recruitment market for UK universities for years to come.


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The Market Intelligence Brief is designed to provide you with an overview of a particular country. Using the latest data from the most reliable sources, it represents a window onto the country's education system and student population as well as the economic, demographic and social factors that shape its higher education sector. The new 2020 series covers not only updated analysis on macro-economic and socio-economic indicators, but also provides a full picture of the education market of a given country.

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