The Africa Education Watch (AEW) has called on the government of Ghana to utilise its supplementary budget for increasing budget allocations to at least 15 percent for education.
Development Diaries reports that the Senior Programmes Officer of AEW, Divine Kpe, made this known in an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM.
He said this would help to address the infrastructural deficit that has resulted in over 5,000 basic schools remaining under trees in the country.
Despite Ghana’s progress in improving access to education for all, there are still challenges preventing thousands of children from going to school and learning.
The school environment is usually not conducive to learning. Classes are overcrowded, water and sanitation facilities are inadequate and trained teachers and school books are in short supply.
Nearly 623,500 children of primary school age are still not enrolled in primary school and one out of four children in the kindergarten age range (from four to five years of age) are not in preschool, according to data from the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
It is also understood that Ghana needs to build 4,000 schools to achieve parity in the provision of education infrastructure for basic education across the country.
‘The government should use the supplementary budget to increase the budget allocation to education to the minimum threshold of 15 percent. And this increment should be targeted at addressing the infrastructural challenges at the basic education level’, Kpe said.
As of 2021, Ghana had a total of 5,403 schools either under trees or having deplorable structures.
To address other areas needing the government’s attention, Kpe stressed the need for the government to reconsider its plan of procuring tablets for senior high schools, adding that the best it can do is to be prudent in its use of resources and ensure funds are used for basic school.
He further urged them to procure textbooks and distribute the same to basic schools across the country to enhance teaching and learning.
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