ECOWAS Education Ministers to meet in Accra

Accra, Jan. 8, GNA - Education Ministers from the 15 Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will meet in Accra from January 9 to 10 to discuss "Education and Sub-regional Integration: our commitments and perspectives."

This meeting follows a first conference of the ECOWAS Education Ministers held in Dakar (Senegal) in September 2002 and aims to discuss a number of issues concerning education in Africa.

These include harmonizing national education policies with the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the aims of the Global Education For All Movement (EFA), teacher training; teaching of science and technology, girls' education and HIV/AIDS.

Preceded by a meeting of experts (Accra, January 7 and 8), this second conference of ECOWAS Education Ministers, would also be part of the follow-up to the 8th Conference of the Ministers of Education of African Member States (MINEDAF), which was held from December 2 to 6 December 2002 in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.

At that conference, ministers and representatives from 49 African States committed themselves to finalizing their national EFA plans by December 2003 and proposed a series of reform measures. These include devoting at least 20 percent of state budgets to education and 50 percent of the education budget to primary education.