Abstract:
It was until the early 1990’s that economists began to place greater
emphasis on the role of human capital development as the basic rock for
development. Using a multi-stage sampling technique, the researcher interviewed
a sample of 868 households in rural Ghana. The study adopted unitary model of
intra household decision model to examine parents’ expectation and investment in
children’s education in rural Ghana. The study revealed that the probability that
children getting the desired jobs in the future, the benefits of the education to the
parents, the average cost of education, the discount rate of the parents, the number
of children in the household and the income level of the heads of households were
the major factors that influenced the proportion of children enrolled in school.
On the issue of resource allocation in the household, expected remittance
from children, job market discrimination and a number of parent-specific
socioeconomic had a major role to play on educational resources allocation. The
study further revealed that there was gender bias when it came to resource
allocation. The study recommends that government should create more jobs to
employ graduates and also eliminate liquidity constraint. The study further
recommends the enforcement of the labour law against discrimination. Finally,
educational cost like Parent Teacher Association (PTA) dues, extra classes’ fees
should be stopped in schools.
