The Multiple Streams Framework and the 1996 and 2007 Educational Reforms in Ghana

The paper examines the formulation of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education policy and the Kuffour-led education reforms in the education system of Ghana in 1996 and 2007 respectively. The study is undertaken through the lens of the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) developed by John Kingdon in 1984 to underscore how different factors or streams collectively influence the adoption of certain policies. The paper argues that far more than mere pursuit of party manifesto promises, broad problem, policy and political occurrences conspired to call forth the reforms. By so doing, the paper puts the theoretical assumptions of MSF to test and finds that though developed within the context of the American democratic system to explain policymaking, the MSF finds utility in the Ghanaian context as well, making its postulations generalizable.