Visual arts education and national development: An inquiry into the popularity of visual arts programme in senior high schools in upper west region of Ghana

The Creative Arts sector has consistently been proclaimed as the bedrock to national development due to its focus on skills training, (self)employment avenues and economic impacts on Gross Domestic Product of economies. Since the introduction of Creative Arts (Visual Arts) in Senior High Schools (SHSs), a plethora of studies have variously been conducted to appraise its successes or otherwise in some regions of Ghana. However, scarcity of such appraisal studies in the Upper West Region (UWR) creates a contextual gap. The study therefore attempts to fill the imminent contextual gap by adopting a qualitative inquiry approach to investigate the popularity of the Visual Arts Programme in SHSs in UWR of Ghana. Census sampling technique enabled all thirty-three (33) public SHSs in the region to be sampled and interviewed. The study reveals that the Visual Arts programme is tenuously unpopular in SHSs in UWR of Ghana as it is offered by only three Schools in the region. Therefore, Heads of SHSs which do not offer Visual Arts Programme in the region should expedite action to have the programme introduced in their respective schools for UWR to fully witness the imbedded massive employment and economic benefits of Art Education. Also, the study established that Visual Arts candidates in the region have variously excelled in their respective Visual Arts elective subjects between 2016 and 2020 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). The study encourages the schools involved to sustain and achieve more remarkable academic performances in WASSCE while upholding students’ skills acquisition.