Abstract:
This study focuses on the parental decision making in relation to
investment in the education or schooling of the child. The study distinguished
between school-attainment and schooling achievement as separate schooling
outcomes of the educational production function. The Study used data from a
initially used for an investigation into the impact of excess fertility on the
schooling of children in Ghana and data on BECE results of the children
obtained from the West African Examinations Council.
The results of the study show that school attainment and schooling
achievement can be explained adequately by the child’s own characteristics,
the household characteristics and the community characteristics. Household characteristics are strongest in explaining school attainment while they are
weaker in explaining schooling achievement. On the other hand, the
community dummies used to proxy the community environmental effects
turned out to be strongest for the most urban of the four communities and
weakest for the most rural of the communities. Educational policies must
always consider both attainment and achievement as very important and
necessary components of education production. Policies aimed at improving
school attainment should have components, which aim at schooling
achievement.
