The low-income housing system in Kumasi An empirical examination of two neighbourhoods

In 2 partsAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX173020 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

A comparison of original owners and inheritors in housing supply and extension in Kumasi, Ghana

After a survey of 1022 households in Kumasi, the commercial centre for forest Ghana, the authors examine the characteristics of house owners and their accommodation. In particular they focus on the differences between owners who originally built the houses and those who have inherited them. They challenge the current orthodoxy that it is more expensive to become an owner now than it was in the past but demonstrate that ownership is achieved relatively late in life. In addition, owners have much lower incomes than current formal sector house prices would imply. They also demonstrate that owners who built are better off than their inheritor counterparts. Thus, inheritance passes ownership rights in Ghana to lower income households. Extenders differ very little from nonextenders. The provision of housing finance should increase the efficiency of housing supply in Kumasi.

Kumasi

Working paper 10 of 17Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/26739 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Can community participation mobilise social capital for improvement of rural schooling? A case study from Ghana

This article uses a case study of rural education in Ghana to investigate an important element of the decentralisation agenda - community participation in schooling. Drawing on a theoretical framework derived from Bourdieu, it argues that schooling and community life are two distinct and differently structured fields. The research demonstrates how this acts as a severe constraint on attempts to mobilise community social capital for the improvement of the school. The position is further complicated by specific postcolonial socio-cultural conditions and a view of community that does not correspond with people's experience. The article concludes by arguing that if community participation is desirable in itself, then the state, through the school, should be active in trying to create it, rather than looking to the community to develop the school