IMANI: How and why NPP scored 55% in education from 2016 manifesto commitments

Policy think tank, IMANI Africa has published details of how a score of 55% was given to the governing New Patriotic Party’s commitment to the 2016 manifesto promises on education.

Education, according to the think tank, was central to the NPP 2016 campaign with the promise of Free SHS dominating policy issues during the election period.

“The NPP made 32 promises in the education sector grouped under 14 thematic areas including Kindergarten, Primary, Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education (STVE), management of schools, teachers, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), tertiary education, among others.

“Over the tenure of administration, government has been able to fully implement 8 of them while work begun on 20. Summarily, IMANI scores government 55% on Education,” said in a detailed report.

According to the think tank, the NPP government’s most prominent achievement in the education sector is the implementation of Free SHS, a highly popular policy introduction.

According to IMANI, in respect of Technical and Vocational Education, the NPP promised to ensure that each region has two state-of-art institutions was not fulfilled although there were consistent mentions of this in the national budgets such as in the 2020 budget, which promised the construction of 32 modern TVET in the medium-term.

“With a score of 47%, the NPP performed satisfactorily in the area of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education,” according to IMANI.

The policy think tank scores a governing party’s performance under various sectors of the economy each year under the IMANIFesto initiative.

The overall score it gave to the NPP, after assessing all of its 510 manifesto promises was 56.77%, which it rates as “fairly satisfactory.”

The IMANIFesto is a framework that assesses political parties’ manifestos using a coding system comprised of quantitative indicators.

It analyses the status of implementation of pledges contained in the manifesto of the ruling party, the feasibility of manifestos presented by political parties before elections and the impact of their promises on the livelihood of citizens.

Below is IMANI’s detailed discussion of NPP government’s performance in fulling its 2016 manifesto promises on education.