Determinants of Household Non-Enrollment into Formal Basic Schooling: A Statistical Evidence from Ghana’s Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey

Abstract

Using data from the most recent Ghana Statistical Service Annual Household Income and Expenditure Survey (AHIES), this descriptive study examines 36,417 household respondents variety of reasons for never having attended formal basic school. The study accentuates socioeconomic, cultural, institutional, and geographic factors interacting to create the complex issues surrounding formal basic school non-attendance in Ghana. Of the 13 primary reasons given by household respondents for never attending a formal basic school as of 2023 in Ghana, five alluded reasons; family not allowing formal basic school, not being able to afford formal basic school, a plausible explanation for poverty, household respondent did not consider formal basic school valuable, household respondents considered themselves too young to attend formal basic school, and household respondents not being interested in formal basic school, accounted for 82.96 percent. The study found a negative correlation between the first three primary reasons, which together accounted for 62.7 percent of the 13 reasons why household respondents in Ghana were unable to attend formal basic school as of 2023. The first three reasons provided by household respondents for never attending a formal basic school are of the socio-economic stock but were found to be negatively correlated, according to estimates from the Spearman rank correlation model and are significant at the five percent level of statistical significance.