Civil Society Education Manifesto launched

Child Rights International (CRI), a Civil Society Organization in collaboration with Action for Rural Education is to implement an Education Agenda 2015, (EA 2015) Project to enable them to develop a civil society education manifesto through extensive consultation with civil society organizations in Ghana.

The EA 2015 project would engage political parties in the 2012 political campaign season as well as on the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2010 – 2020 to commit them to implement the broad policy plans embodied in the ESP 2010-2020, and also specific policy proposals embodied in the Civil Society Education Manifesto.

Mr Bright Appiah, Executive Director, CRI, who said this at a press launch of the EA-2015 in Accra on Tuesday said the project would entail a multi stakeholder consultative strategy to elicit varying opinions on alternatives education policy proposals from CSOs nationwide.

“This will include Parent Teacher Associations, NGOs, Trades Unions, Faith Based Organizations, Student Unions, Media, Academia, Education Research Institutions and Traditional Authority,” he said.

He said through the Ea-2015 project’s consultative platforms, consensus on major policy proposals to the next political administration would be secured from the purpose of unifying the civil society voices in the advocacy for quality basic, secondary and tertiary education in Ghana.

Mr Appiah said apart from the consultations, EA-2012 project would review key reports on the performance of the education sector in the country, taking into cognizance imminent issues and practicability of policy recommendations, given the four year period left to achieve key Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) targets in education.

He therefore called on the media to cooperate with them to achieve their purpose.

Mr Kofi Asare, Chief Executive of Action for Rural Education, said although Ghana had set herself a target to train 95 per cent of Kindergarten (KG), Primary and Junior High School (JHS) Teachers by 2015, the actual figures revealed that only 31.1 per cent of KG Teachers were trained as at 2011.

He said 50.6 per cent of Primary School Teachers were trained over the same period and JHS recorded 65.8 per cent.

Mr Asare said the Western Region was leading the untrained Teachers’ list in the country followed by the three Northern Regions.

That, he attributed to over concentration of trained teachers in major cities especially Greater Accra, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions.

He identified lack of transparent mechanisms to monitor the distribution of educational resources, low literacy and low numeracy levels, inadequate classroom supervision, in adequate infrastructure and high basic school drop- out rates as some of the key challenges in the country’s basic schools.

Key partners include Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition, Northern Network for Education Development, National Union of Ghana Students, Ghana National Association of Teachers and National Association of Graduate Teachers.