Ghana’s Common Core Programme: Assessing the Impacts and Constraints of Rented Policies on the Economy of a Developing Country

The purpose of this study was to assess the impacts and constraints of Ghana’s Common Core Programme as part of rented policies. Drawing on the dependency theory of integration characterised by an interplay between external influences and the domestic environment in public policy decision making; and deploying the qualitative research approach, the study revealed substantially that the implementation of policies in Ghana is laden with unbridled external influences and domestic challenges. This is due to the status of Ghana as a developing country which requires continuous donor support for the execution of policies. In diverse ways, however, this trend poses inexorable challenges to the socioeconomic development of the country. Ghana’s Common Core Programme, a new curriculum for the training of students at the junior high school, was implemented in January 2022. The implementation phase of the curriculum is however riddled with considerable challenges ranging from inadequate resources to teachers’ inability to achieve targets of the curriculum. The argument of this paper is that despite the good intent of Ghanaian policy makers, unavailable resources make it quite inexpedient and an unnerving task to attempt to duplicate policy paradigms of the West without considering Ghana’s socioeconomic context.

Keywords: Donor Support, Ghana’s Common Core Programme, Rented Policies, Curriculum, Policy Implementation