GES to monitor NGO activities

The Ghana Education Service (GES) will soon establish a special desk at its headquarters to monitor activities and coordinate operations of non-governmental organisations (NGO) and civil societies working in education.

Mr. Charles Tsegah, Deputy Director General of GES, has expressed worry that the lack of such desks has resulted in fragmented activities of NGOs and CBOs, which according to him, does not make the GES to pursue a common approach to quality education.

Mr. Tsegah was addressing the second educational convention of STAR-Ghana in Tamale on Wednesday, which brought together several players in the educational sector to deliberate on steps and strategies to positively tackle the issue of quality education in the rural parts of the country.

STAR-Ghana is a multi-donor pooled non-governmental organisation, which organized the two-day annual event on the theme: “Sustaining Partnership for Quality Education.”

Mr. Tsegah said sustaining partnership between government and civil society organizations around quality education in Ghana presents a good opportunity for a dispassionate conversation on how to build consensus on the processes for attaining quality education.

He mentioned five key issues which must be given the priority in quality education and includes the child, curriculum, the teacher, the learning environment and community participation, without which quality education cannot be achieved.

Mr. Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, Programme Manager for STAR-Ghana said education improvement remains a key priority to the programmes being pursued by the multi-donor organization and indicated that a total of 4 million dollars have been spent this year through contracts with stakeholders to meet that mark.

He assured that STAR-Ghana would continue to invest in the human resource development of the country through quality education and called for a comprehensive and integrated stakeholder approach in educational development.

Mr. Amidu observed that education was a right in the country and every child of school going age in Ghana must be given the chance, saying that, ‘why are children in some parts of the country not having access to education when education is a right.”

Mr. Albert Kan Dapaah, a former MP and a member of the Steering Committee at STAR-Ghana, was concerned that despite the numerous material and natural resources that was at the disposal of the nation, the lives of the people had not improved much and tasked civil society to hold duty bearers accountable.

He advocated for a vigorous civil society to hold the government accountable especially on the oil find so that the country would benefit from that sector.

The Vo-Naa, Alhaji Muhammad Baba Bawah said community mobilization and partnership in educational development was very important and encouraged communities to continue rendering such benevolent services.