Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates how a coupling of problem, policy and politics streams can lead to radical policy change in high school education financing in Africa. It argues that homegrown policy change is possible even in contexts of weak fiscal capacity and incompatible political ideology.

Paper long abstract:

In 2017 Ghana introduced a universal and comprehensively free senior high school (FSHS) programme to address financial barriers to post-basic education. A path-departing policy change supervised by a right-of-centre New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, the FSHS was adopted when “Ghana’s economy was in trouble hobbled by widening current account and budget deficits [and] rampant inflation” (IMF, 2019). The FSHS programme presents a paradox which we address through three interrelated questions: How did financial barriers to education rise to the status of a national problem in Ghana requiring a path-departing policy response? What factors facilitated the adoption of a comprehensively FSHS programme despite prevailing stable cost-sharing model and limited fiscal capacity of the state? Why did the NPP government adopt and implement a FSHS programme which is incompatible with its right of centre ideology? Drawing upon elite interviews including with government officials, members of parliament, donors, CSOs and extensive documentary reviews, such as parliamentary Hansards and media publications we challenge dominant policy diffusion and imposition theses which claim that path-departing policy change in LMICs is mainly actuated through exogenous factors. We argue that endogenous change is possible because political elites can fashion homegrown solutions when they are convinced that a policy problem exists and addressing it can enhance their electoral fortunes. Where political ideologies clash with electoral incentives, elites will jettison their ideologies in favour of pragmatic policies that may appease potential voters. Our findings have implications for how we think about social policy financing in the Global South.