Annual Spending on Formal Education Among Households in the Ashanti Region of Ghana: A Ghana Living Standards Survey Seven Investigation

Abstract

This study uses a Tobit model to analyse socio-economic regional variables affecting households expenditure on education from data collected from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS VII) in 2017. The results showed that households in the Ashanti region increased their spending on education across all three categories of education covered by the data, with spending on basic education accounting for 57.1 percent of total household spending on education. Female heads of household and family size have a positive impact on households’ annual expenditure on education. This study could help stakeholders involved in the development of the education sector in the Ashanti region to devise better strategies, especially in the face of shrinking public budgets for education, by recognizing the contributions of households as key actors in investing in education in the Ashanti Region. At the policy level, the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council must act to ensure that households do not spend more than half of their total household spending on education for basic education.