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Earmark enough resources to education sector in 2021 budget – NAGRAT

Ahead of the budget statement reading by the Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) says it expects the government to earmark enough resources for the education sector.

According to the teacher union, various governments seem to sideline the sector when it comes to resource allocation, a situation that impacts negatively on outputs.

He cited the non-supply of food items by the Buffer Stock Company and the Ministry’s delay in the release of funds.

Speaking to Citi News ahead of the budget reading on Friday, March 12, 2021, President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu said he expects the government to allocate enough resources to the educational sector.

“We want the government to clearly earmark enough resources to the sector so that various organisations and agencies can operate properly. The sector has been sidelined for so long, as it stands, the Buffer Stock Company has not been providing the schools with food, is it a question of lack of resources or mismanagement?”

“We expect the budget to indicate clearly the allocation of enough and adequate resources for the education sector and the timeous release of those resources. If the resources are not released, the environment becomes inconducive for teaching and learning,” Mr. Carbonu said.

He also urged the government to put words into action by seeing to the timely release of resources reserved for the sector.

 

The 2020 budget themed ‘consolidating the gains for growth, jobs, and prosperity for all’ was presented by the then Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta on November 13, 2019.

In the Education sector, government planned to undertake the following programmes among others;

To develop, print, and supply Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs) for the revised curriculum to include the following:

  1. Literacy, Numeracy, Creative Arts, and Our World Our People Workbooks for 1,250,144 KG pupils.
  2. Literacy, Numeracy, Creative Arts and Our World Our People Textbooks for 1,614,280 pupils in Lower Primary.
  3. Literacy, Numeracy, Creative Arts and Our World Our People, History, Ghanaian Language and Science Textbooks for 1,561,058 pupils in Upper Primary and
  4. 1,215,088 pieces of Teachers Guide for KG to P6 teachers.

To commence the development of the new JHS and SHS curriculum and train JHS and SHS teachers on the new curriculum as well as to decentralise the management of pre-tertiary education upon the passage of the Pre-Tertiary Education Bill, 2019 by Parliament.

Under Basic Education Programme, it planned to absorb the BECE registration fees for 402,010 candidates from public JHSs.

To Train 9,000 basic school teachers in the delivery of BSTEM.

To equip 4,400 basic schools with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) equipment and commence the construction of 20 STEM Centres across the country and many more.

Under the Secondary School education, government planned to see to the implementation of free SHS to open up secondary education opportunity that has never been recorded in our recent history.

Under Tertiary School Education, it planned to;

Complete set-up of Common Admissions Platform (CAPS), test-run and deploy for use;

Oversee implementation of African Centers of Excellence Programme;

Facilitate the implementation of the new curriculum in all 46 Colleges of Education in affiliation with five universities

Complete preparatory activities for the establishment of Open University.

Continue with the provision of additional infrastructure facilitates to enhance education service delivery including the Construction of additional offices for MoE headquarters, New office complex for the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), National Inspectorate Board (NIB), National Teaching Council (NTC) and Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Continue renovation works at GES Headquarters; and Complete the construction and furnishing of GES Training School at Saltpond.

Parliament subsequently approved GHS 13 billion out of the GHS98.036 billion allocated for the 2020 financial year to the Ministry of Education for the programmes and activities for the 2020 Financial Year.

This was an increment of 18.8% in the Ministry’s total budgetary allocation for the year 2020, over the year 2019, allocation of GHS11 billion.

 

The government facilitated the easing of restrictions on education by first allowing final-year students at the tertiary level to resume schooling on Monday, June 15, 2020.

To facilitate this process, a total of 600,000 face masks were supplied to tertiary institutions.

In addition to this, 1,700 Veronica buckets, 200,000 litres of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, 3,400 litres of liquid soap, and 900 thermometer guns were distributed.

All the 1,167 Senior High Schools (SHS) in the country were fumigated and disinfected.

It also provided 2.4 million pieces of re-usable face masks to students, teaching and non-teaching staff, invigilators, and school administrators, with each person receiving three pieces.

Government distributed 18,000 Veronica Buckets, 800,000 pieces of 200-ml sanitizers, 36,000 rolls of paper towel, 36,000 gallons of liquid soap, and 7,200 thermometer guns to all SHS institutions.

It also made available GHS75.4 million to cater for the full cost of this year’s WASSCE examination fees for the 313,837 SHS-3 students.

To protect the 532,000 Junior High School final year students, and the 218,000 teaching and non-teaching staff, the government distributed 45,000 Veronica Buckets, 90,000 gallons of liquid soap, 90,000 rolls of paper towels, 40,000 thermometer guns, 750,000 pieces of 200-ml sanitizers, and 2.2 million re-usable facemasks. This was preceded by the fumigation and disinfection of all the 17,439 schools across the country prior to the re-opening date of Monday, June 29, 2020.

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