Towards Equity in Access and Quality in Basic Education in Ghana: Comparative Strategies for the Rural and Urban milieu

Ghana has adopted several policy strategies in approaching the problems of low and inequities in access and quality in her educational system. Although the country has made modest and sustained gains in these areas, the rural-urban inequity in access and quality continues to persist. This is partly due to the fact that strategies that are adopted are most of the time implemented generally with little consideration to the differences in rural-urban contexts. The objective of this theoretically studies is to consolidate the findings on the topic into offering comprehensive appropriate strategies in comparative terms from the lens of the human rights, which are relevant to the rural-urban contexts of Ghana in dealing with the problem of access, equity, quality and relevance in basic education. Its main hunch is that well targeted strategies that are appropriate to the geographical, socio-economic conditions of a particular milieu within a country are likely to yield maximum outcome than a wholesale implementation throughout the country. The paper identifies accessibility in terms of cost and geographical distance as the major hindrances to equity in access to basic education in rural Ghana. Hence, it suggests strategies that seek to eliminate cost and bridge geographical distance between pupils and the schools. In urban Ghana