Traditional Institutions and Agenda Setting: The Case of the Adoption of the Ghana Education Trust Fund

Abstract

This study applies agenda setting theory mostly used to examine policy
making in western countries to understand educational policymaking in
Ghana. It draws on a case study on the role of the Asante Traditional
Council and rulers in the adoption of the Ghana Education Trust Fund
(GETFund), a program that allows the public to participate in the financing
of education. The study finds that the outside initiation model, consolidation,
pluralist concept of policymaking, and the policy streams metaphor help to
explain agenda setting for the adoption of the GETFund program. In
particular, it argues that the enstoolment of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and his
activism in championing the idea of a public participation program in
financing education was an intervening event that opened the window for a
proposal centering on that idea to gain agenda entrance and the passage of
the GETFund bill by the Parliament of Ghana in 2000. Broadly, the study
helps to understand the role of traditional institutions and rulers in public
policy making in Ghana.