Abstract:
Social protection interventions have been used as a poverty reduction strategy in many countries. Free Basic Education is one of the social protection interventions implemented in most developing countries. This review assessed the outcome of the implementation of Free Basic Education in Africa, using Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, and Malawi as a test case. Thirty-Seven (37) published documents were used for the study. The study is underpinned by Bagozzi’s Goal Theory and Conceptualized with Knowledge Gaps and Knowledge Management Strategies. The study noted that, the Free Basic Education Policy has increased primary school net enrolment rates in these countries holding all other confounders constant. The study also revealed that, the implementation of the Free Basic Education Policy did not reduce educational expenditure as expected as school authorities continue to levy pupils. The objective of removing financial barriers was therefore not met, and the quality of teaching and learning delivery in most schools has fallen due to high pupils-teacher ratio and other implementation challenges. Based upon these findings, the study concluded that, there is the need for constant stakeholder interaction, efficient financial practices, fiscal space creation, provision of more educational infrastructure, recruitment of additional teachers, measures to ensure quality of teaching and learning delivery and effective monitoring of social protection intervention programmes in Africa
