Rural-urban disparity in economic and social development in Ghana has led to disparities in educational resources and variations in students' achievement in different parts of the country. Nonetheless, senior high schools (SHSs) in rural and urban schools follow the same curriculum, and their students write the same West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE), which qualifies them to access higher education in Ghana's public universities. Urban SHSs are also recognized nationwide as good schools where students make it to university. Moreover, performance patterns with regard to admission of SHS graduates into university also vary between rural and urban schools; consequently, some parents do everything to get their children in urban SHSs, even consenting to placement in visual arts, a program deemed appropriate only for academically weak students. This study therefore adopted the qualitative-quantitative research approach with interview, observation, and questionnaire administration to investigate the critical factors that affect academic performance of SHS students, particularly those in visual arts as case study. Findings from six public SHSs in Kumasi-two each in rural, peri-urban, and urban areas-revealed that urban schools perform better than rural and peri-urban schools because they attract and admit junior high school graduates with excellent Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) grades, have better infrastructure, more qualified teachers, prestigious names, and character that motivate their students to do well. This suggests that bridging the rural-urban gap in educational resources could promote quality teaching and learning, and thereby raise academic achievement for SHS students in Ghana.

Teaching and learning in Ghana's Senior High Schools (SHSs) are guided by a centralized curriculum, teaching syllabus, textbooks, assessment criteria, and examinations, yet rural-urban disparities exist in educational resources provision, which significantly affect teaching and learning processes and student achievement in the SHSs, particularly those on the Visual Arts program. To understand the factors that cause rural-urban differentials in student performance in different SHSs in Ghana, we adopted a qualitative-quantitative research approach with interview, observation, and questionnaire administration to examine teaching and learning of Visual Arts in six public SHSs: two each in rural, peri-urban, and urban settings in metropolitan Kumasi. Findings from data sourced from 120 students (66 males; 54 females), 17 teachers (15 males; two females), and 24 Visual Arts lessons revealed that unlike Visual Arts education in urban SHSs, student achievement in rural and peri-urban schools is hampered by lowered criteria for admitting students into Visual Arts, large class sizes, lack of studio facilities, insufficient specialist teachers, and instructional time for teaching elective Visual Arts subjects, adoption of ineffective teaching strategies, setting of low academic standards, and inadequate funding for teaching practical lessons. Unlike rural and peri-urban SHSs, urban schools organize speech and prize-giving days to motivate students, and effectively collaborate with Visual Arts students to mount art exhibitions to showcase their creativity. Improving the quality and distribution of social infrastructure, educational facilities, and qualified teachers, and actively monitoring educational standards in rural and periurban SHSs could raise academic achievement for students in all parts of Ghana.