Education to witness largest expenditure – Finance Minister

In line with Government’s belief in investing in human capital, education is about to witness the largest capital expenditure in the sector for any single year in the last 50 years.

Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister said the Government would continue to ensure that these investments lead to an increase.

“Government has presented to Parliament, a proposal to secure up to $1.5 billion long-term financing for GETFUND on the back of a portion of VAT receivables as prescribed in Act 581, which will be issued in three tranches of $500.00 million,” Mr Ofori-Atta said in his presentation of the 2019 budget statement and financial policy of the government to Parliament on Thursday.

“This will be used for critical education infrastructure, especially to complete the numerous uncompleted buildings in secondary and tertiary institutions around the country.”

He said in 2019 the Government would commence work to upgrade 10 Technical Universities /Polytechnics and 13 Technical Institutes with modern equipment and also train selected lecturers of these institutions.

He said to further develop the TVET sub-sector, the Government would commence the construction of 20 state-of-the-art TVET Centres as well as upgrade and retool 34 Vocational Training Institutes in 2019.

He said in addition, two new centres in foundry and machining would be constructed.

Mr Ofor-Atta said as part of its drive to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education across all levels, the Government would in 2019 roll out the Basic STEM programme in 7,000 basic schools across the country; construct 10 STEM Centres; initiate the development of a knowledge cloud to make educational materials content accessible to all; and provide multimedia laboratories as well as internet connectivity to cover many more schools.

He recalled that in 2018, the Government also cut-sod for the construction of a multi-purpose Youth Resource Centres in every region of the country.

He said construction work had started at all the sites and were at various levels of completion; adding that, the centres would provide space for youth engagement, recreation, centres of learning and sports.