GES is the most corrupt institution

...Sawyer alleges

But GES PRO deflects claims

The Chairperson of the Accra Chapter of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), Ms. Judith S. Sawyer, has described the Ghana Education Service (GES) as one of the most corrupt institutions in the country. She says the corrupt nature of the Service is preventing donor institutions and development partners from extending financial support to the sector.

Ms. Sawyer made this disclosure recently in Accra when she addressed a consultative meeting on Girls' Education organized by the Greater Accra Chapter of the GNECC.

According to Ms. Sawyer, GES does not have good managerial structures in place hence funding destined for specific projects and activities are inappropriately managed "and fund finds its way into individual pockets."

She has therefore advised that, "If authorities at GES do not see the need to put in place good structures to govern the sector in order to attract donor funding, then education standards at the public schools will continue to fall resulting in failure among pupils in the public schools."

She noted that, 99% of teachers in public schools can teach much better than their colleagues in private schools but due to inadequate teaching and learning materials and incentives, teachers in the public schools are unwilling to teach at their optimum.

On her part, a Strategic Planning Officer of the Girls Education Unit (GEU), Ms. Louise Graymore, noted that, under a project dubbed "What Works in Girls' Education in Ghana" funded by the UK's Department For International Development (DFID), GEU commissioned an analysis from the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) to examine the unit cost and impact of the existing and past girls education interventions in Ghana in order to make new reforms to better girls education.

She said recommendations given during the period will provide a foundation on which the GEU will produce a credible National Gender Action Plan for the country's education sector and also sever as a Strategic Plan or an Operational plan for the GEU by the end of November, 2011. The interventions on which recommendations were provided are: community sensitization, scholarships and stipends, transportation and boarding, life skills training, child protection and safety, and monitoring and peer support for girls' education.

Others were, complementary education, strengthening school accountability, gender friendly infrastructure, gender sensitive and recruitment of female educationist, livelihood and vocational training, and school feeding and dry ration for education.

In his response, the Public Relations Officer of GES, Mr. Parker Allotey, noted "It is unfortunate that this statement is coming from somebody who has worked closely with the Ghana Education Service for some time. However "we will not be derailed, we consider that it is a human institution and therefore there may be pockets of dealings that may have doubtful morality but to condemn wholesale is unfortunate."

According to Mr. Allotey, as an institution the GES has played the leading role in the quest to achieve quality education for children and this is in collaboration with development partners, NGOs and other stakeholders.

As such "funds which are meant for projects are really used for those projects so we don't have the case of corruption at that level and this will be confirmed by our development partners who always monitor the distribution of books, interventions, monies, funds being used for these interventions and other things. We always account for them so there is no corruption as far as we are concerned here."

With regards to the issue of schools under trees, he said "government has released a lot of funds and we have applied those funds diligently and as I speak now we have built more than one thousand five hundred schools which have replaced those schools under trees.

"I will dream of a world where there is no corruption in our homes, in our work places, even in our churches.

"Therefore is unfortunate that somebody condemns the Ghana Education Service as being the most corrupt organization; we take exception to that and I will challenge the person to bring the facts and together we will see how to prosecute those facts."