Literacy and Education

Literacy is the ability to read and write. In the 2010 PHC, questions on literacy were posed to persons 11 years and older. Questions on education on the other hand were posed to persons 3 years and older. The questions on education are on school attendance (past and present), educational level attained and grade/form/class completed at that level of education.

Table 3.8 shows that 89 percent of the population aged 11 years and older were literates (in English, any Ghanaian language, or French) while 11 percent were not literates. Five out of every 10 persons (52.0%) can read and write in English and Ghanaian language.

Also, six out of every 10 persons who were 65+ can read and write in English and Ghanaian language. The proportion of the population who can read and write in English and French, and English, French and Ghanaian language were 1.2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.

The results further show that the number of non-literate females (98,439) was more than twice that of males (39,567). Similarly, female literate population (584,637) in the Metropolis was slightly more than their male counterparts (580,506).

Level of Education

Table 3.9 provides information on population 3 years and older by level of education, school attendance and sex. Out of the 533,291 persons enumerated as currently in school, 38.4 percent were at the primary level, 18.2 percent were at the JSS/JHS level while 12.8 percent were at the Senior High School level.

With regards to those who were in school in the past (869,041), the distribution were as follows: Middle school (20.9%), JSS/JHS (24.7%), SSS/SHS (14.8%) and Tertiary (11.2%). Also, the results show that more females (26.1%) than males (23.2%) ended their education at the JHS/JSS levels while more males (14.3%) than females (8.2%) completed Tertiary education in the Accra Metropolis. The low proportion of females in Tertiary education and the higher percentage who end their education at the JHS could be due to marriage reasons.

Fig 3.2 shows that more than half of the population 11 years and above (52%) is literate in both English and Ghanaian language while 40.0 percent were literate in English only. The rest were as follows: Ghanaian language only (5.0%), English, French and Ghanaian language (2%) and English and French 1.0 percent. This means that English and Ghanaian Language are the main medium of communication in the Accra Metropolis.