Parliament’s Select Committee on Education has pledged to engage the Ministry of Education to convene a national conversation on education delivery as one of the ways of enhancing space for citizen-state dialogues on issues of importance to citizens.
This follows a strategic dialogue held between CSOs and the Education Committee of Parliament. The meeting, convened by STAR-Ghana Foundation brought together CSOs including the African Education Watch, Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition, International Child Development Programme, and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, to dialogue with Parliament’s Select Committee on Education on key issues in basic education. The meeting discussed “Memorandum of Issues in the Basic Education Sector” put together by the Foundation and and its partners.
In his opening remarks, Executive Director of STAR-Ghana Foundation, Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, acknowledged parliament’s work with the Foundation, stressing the importance of the relationship between the two.
“For us, your presence is a testimony of the importance you attach to working with us, which is to help improve the quality of education and make it accessible to all students of this country, regardless of your social status” he said.
He added, “We believe that strengthening the nexus between civil society, Parliament, and duty bearers is critical to any improvement in the country.”
According to him, STAR-Ghana Foundation, has previously under the program supported and worked with Parliament around strengthening the oversight responsibility of the house to ensure its effectiveness as well as brokering the relationship between Parliament and civil society.
He added that the Foundation’s work with Parliament has been narrowed down to three committees, namely the Education Committee, Health Committee and Gender Committee. Ibrahim-Tanko argued that critical to any nation’s development are the issues of quality health, education, and the empowerment of those who are disadvantaged.
On behalf of Civil Society, Head of Programmes for STAR-Ghana Foundation, Eunice Racheal Agbenyadzi, presented the “Memorandum of Issues in the Basic Education Sector” put together by the Foundation and and its partners (Coalition of Concerned Teachers, Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition).
She commended the committee for its work on the issue of textbooks for the new curriculum, arrears on school feeding and feeding grants for special schools, education financing in the medium-term expenditure framework.
Her presentation focused on key issues in the memorandum that led the meeting to deliberate on the other issues and proffer recommendations on how the committee can collaborate with civil society to find solutions.
For his part, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, reiterated the share decline in the rate of discretionary financial allocations to basic education compared to that of the senior high school allocations.
The poor financing of basic education has adverse effect on the management of teaching and learning, contributing to the poor learning outcomes recorded in the public basic school.
The Committee emphasized the need for targeted data on out-of-school children to supplement civil society information. This data will serve as a basis to hold duty bearers accountable and inform policy decisions to address access gaps.
Vincent Assafoah, a member of the Committee, said although government expressed commitment to introduce a systematic decision-making process for grant allocation increments, clarity is needed on the frequency of these increments and whether they can be indexed to inflation.
Concerns were raised regarding the allocation of resources, particularly in providing laptops over essential needs like desks. Suggestions were made to redirect funds towards critical areas such as textbooks provision and teacher accommodation.
The Committee and CSOs resolved to collaborate to influence the Ministry of Education to adopt a user policy/manual for education assets acquired by the government for learners/schools to ensure stewardship.
