Economic Projections are too optimistic - NDPC

Mrs Angela Farhat of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) on Tuesday said success of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) depended on realistic projections. She was leading discussions on the topic, "Quality Education for All: Panacea for Poverty Alleviation", at this year's Conference of District Directors of Education (CODDE) at Ho under the theme, "Relevant Education for Sustainable National Development".

Mrs Farhat, who is in-charge of HIPC funds at the (NDPC) told the Directors that "we have been rather too optimistic in our projections." She said the public service face cash flow problems as a consequence of the problem of the economy. "The economy is not growing." During discussions the participants said realising the education sector's goals would remain elusive if the sector continued to be starved of adequate funds.

They said the sector could not wait until a better day to receive the right amount of flow to enable it to optimise its contribution to the manpower development.

In their view cash incentives to teachers was a necessity that should not be postponed because of its negative effect on morale and commitment.

They suggested that there must be clear guidelines in the disbursement and decision on the utilisation of the HIPC fund by the District Assemblies on school projects.

The Directors underscored the need for the Assemblies to consult and confer with them to avoid bias and uninformed decisions in the choice of beneficiary communities.

They also suggested that government should make it a policy of providing clusters of teachers' quarters when citing schools especially in deprived communities.

The participants recommended that toilets should be provided at all basic schools under the HIPC fund programme for education.