Education Minister, DFID discuss role of NGOs in Ghana’s education sector

The Minister for Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has interacted with the Country Director of the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK, Jim McAlpine, to discuss issues of concern, especially, the activities of NGOs in education sector.

The event was to afford the two parties have a deeper insight into the activities of the NGOs to enable them to agree on acceptable coordination and reporting mechanisms.

The meeting was a follow up to a recent one held between her and Nick Hurd, Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in London.

Prof. Naana Opoku-Agyemang did not hide her frustration at the operations of NGOs in education across the country without consultation with the ministry, which has oversight responsibility on all educational interventions in the country, whether public or private.

Additionally, they submit no report to the ministry in terms of what they were engaged in, where and for what purpose.

She disclosed that, to be able to get to the bottom of the matter, she has requested for the list of all NGOs in education operating in the districts, their locations, addresses and the activities they were engaged in to enable the ministry, apart from monitoring them, ensure better coordination and reporting mechanisms for better results in the interest of the people of Ghana.

The minister noted that it was difficult to know the kind of scholarships that some of these NGOs offered Ghanaian students to be able to tell whether they were going to serve the interest of the beneficiary in future.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang also noted that, because of the lack of proper coordination, there was the likelihood of duplications in the activities and programmes of most of these organizations and which could end up not serving the needs of the beneficiaries in particular and the country in general.