Empirical Analysis of the Effectiveness of Teacher Distance Education (TDE) in Ghana: The Perception of Student Teachers, Tutors and Coordinators of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW)

Education has proven to be an effective means of developing the human resource base of most nations and could advance the development of nations. In other to upgrade and train more professionals and non-professionals in the sphere of education, the concept of teacher distance education has gained more attention globally. Therefore, more and new knowledge is required to advance the course of teacher distance education in developing countries through empirical research; it becomes critically important to understand the perceived quality and, therefore, effectiveness of teachers distance education from stakeholders’ perspective in the Ghanaian teacher distance education context. Overall, student teachers, tutors and coordinators rated the University of Education Teacher Distance Education successful. It was recommended among other things that the programme design, content quality, instruction design, instructional delivery, student support and student assessment quality must be given further attention. Keywords: effectiveness, perception, teacher distance education, university of educatio

Improving the competitiveness and marketability of locally-produced rice in Ghana

Irrigated rice has been grown over a number of decades in Ghana on state-sponsored government irrigation projects. Over the years these projects have received extensive state support, as the government has attempted, through various initiatives, to achieve food self-sufficiency. The emphasis on promoting domestic rice production was enhanced by the growing importance of rice in the diet of the urban population, combined with technical assistance provided by donors, such as the Chinese. In addition, the promotion of state-sponsored, input-intensive agriculture reflected the Ghanaian government's past adherence to socialist development models

Unveiling the effect of income inequality on safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) : does financial inclusion matter?

Access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) is crucial for disease prevention and improving general health outcomes. However, a significant number of people across the globe still lack access to safe drinking water and practice open defecation. Therefore, evidence-based research is needed to guide policymakers in improving WASH adoption and practice across the globe. In this study, we add to knowledge and policy by probing the role of income inequality and financial inclusion on access to improved WASH facilities using a comprehensive panel dataset from 119 countries between 2004 and 2020. We used the heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable regression and the Driscoll-Kraay estimator to account for endogeneity and cross-sectional dependency inherent in panel data, respectively. Our preferred endogeneity and cross-sectional dependency-corrected results show that income inequality reduces access to safe WASH facilities. Our study demonstrates that financial inclusion significantly increases access to safe WASH facilities. Income inequality and financial inclusion have heterogeneous effects on access to safe WASH facilities across rural and urban settings, income groups, and geographical regions. Through our interaction and marginal effect analysis, we document that improvement in financial inclusion reduces the adverse effect of income inequality on safe WASH adoption and practices. These findings highlight that policies that strengthen financial inclusion services and further address income inequality would improve WASH adoption and practices. Considering the inhibiting and enhancing effects of income inequality and financial inclusion, respectively, governments could adopt social welfare policies to tackle the former and also put in measures to enhance financial development and inclusion to enhance the latter