Ghana commits chunk of National Budget to Education Sector

Mr Kofi Asare, Executive Director, Action for Rural Education, a Civil Society Organisation, has observed that Ghana was the only country worldwide that commits a chunk of the national budget to education.

He said currently education accounted for 31 per cent of the national budget with Ghana Education Service share of the sector’s budget ranging from 60-70 per cent.

Mr Asare made the observation at the launch of Education Agenda-2015 Project (EA-2015), a year's advocacy campaign to develop a civil society education manifesto through extensive consultation with civil society in Ghana.

He said the main sources of funding for education as at 2011, were the Government-78 per cent, internally generated fund-nine per cent, donors-six per cent and others-seven per cent.

Mr Asare said although there were a number of interventions to boost the budgetary commitment there were lack of transparent mechanisms to monitor the distribution of education resources.

He mentioned free school uniforms for deprived districts, free exercise books and text books, laptops for schools, infrastructure development, and increase in capitation grant and school feeding programme as some of the interventions.

The objective of EA-2015 Project is to engage political parties in the 2012 political campaign on the Education Strategic Plan (ESP 2010-2020), and specific policy proposals embodied in the Civil Society Education Manifesto.

It would also review key reports on the performance of the education sector in Ghana, taking into cognisance imminent issues and the practicability of policy recommendations, given the four years left to achieve key Millennium Development Goals targets in education.

Mr Bright Appiah, Executive Director, Child Rights International (CRI), said the project was a collaborative effort between CRI and Action for Rural Education with funding from STAR Ghana, a multi-donor pooled funding mechanism.

He said the project would adopt a comprehensive advocacy strategy to position education policy issues at the highest level of political discourse and commit political parties to implement the civil society education manifesto and the Education Strategic Plan (2010-2020).

Mr Appiah therefore, called for media cooperation to generate and sustain debates on education policy issues during the Election 2012 campaign. **