On Monday 11th April 2022, Eduwatch met the leadership of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to discuss the final re-entry review report and advance our case for the the inclusion of poor teenage mothers willing to return to school unto the LEAP programme.

Discussions centered around the need for an expansive approach to prevent teenage pregnancy, a strategy to support teenage mothers economically without neccessarily incentivizing pregnancy, and the possibility of a pilot within the already existing LEAP households based on the availability of future funding.

© Africa Education Watch

Members and Partners of the Campaign Against the Privatization and Commercialization of Education (CAPCOE) on Monday 11th April 2022, have urged government to continue to fully absorb the full cost of staff salaries in public tertiary institutions in order to maintain tertiary fees at reasonable levels.

In a joint statement signed by CAPCOE, Africa Education Watch, the All Africa Students Union, University Students Association of Ghana, National Union of Ghana Students and the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition, the group warned of a reduction in access to tertiary education by the poor, leading to non-attainment of Government's vision of increasing Gross Tertiary Enrolment Rate (GTER) from 18% in 2017 to 40% by 2030, should government go ahead to implement the proposed cost-shifting policy. Ghana’s GTER has virtually stagnated at 19%, five years after setting the target of 40%, with the cost barriers being a major impediment to tertiary enrollment.

Please access the statement via the link below:

https://africaeducationwatch.org/publication/policy-proposal-to-transfer-responsibility-11-04-2022

© Africa Education Watch

Education Think Tank, Africa Education Watch, is calling for a robust student loan system to replace the payment of allowances and feeding grants given to trainees at public colleges of education.

The release of over GH¢ 67 million to public Colleges of Education to settle three out of six months’ feeding arrears, has sparked debate about the scrapping of feeding grants and allowances paid to teacher trainees.

A cross-section of the public is of the view, that since the colleges have been upgraded to university status, such grants should be scrapped. The allowance, which was replaced with the student loan scheme in 2016, was restored by the New Patriotic Party government in 2017.

Speaking on the subject, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, said the way out of the woods is to reinforce the student loan system.

“If you look at the issue from the physical perspective, the government already had systems working to solve these problems; the student loan. We haven’t made the student loan a responsive one. The student loan scheme has not been able to disburse monies to those who have applied and have not even given the opportunity to others to apply. The reason is that GETFund has also not been able to release monies to them.”

He also called on the government to provide the needed infrastructure to the Colleges of Education if they have been upgraded to university status.

“To the best of my knowledge, the colleges have now become tertiary institutions, and it is the responsibility of the government to upgrade their facilities to the level of a full-fleshed university.”

Source: Citinewsroom

On Wednesday 20th April 2022, Eduwatch participated in the Star Ghana Foundation's partners' end-of-phase reflection to review and harvest project outcomes and strategize towards the overall aim of various projects under the Partnership Beyond Aid programme supported by the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.

The engagement brought together five partners (Africa Education Watch, Send Ghana, Christian Health Association Ghana, Ghana Developing Communities Association, Center for Social Policy) to reflect, harvest project outcomes, and share experiences and best practices on the various projects implemented in health, education, and social protection.

© Africa Education Watch

The Ministry of Education justifies the GH 250 million a year teacher trainees’ allowance as a motivation to accept postings to deprived communities.

After decades of implementing this policy, let us examine the data on policy effectiveness.

As of 2020, Adenta with only 18 primary schools had 364 teachers while Zabzugu with 55 primary schools (3 times that of Adenta) had only 260 teachers (100 less than Adenta).

In addition, there are over 2,000 primary school classrooms without teachers in the 75 deprived districts, while a surplus of thousands exist in the endowed municipalities.

In any case, if indeed the rationale behind the policy is to encourage acceptance of deprived postings, why not rather convert the allowance into a ‘deprived posting allowance’ enjoyable by only teachers who accept postings to deprived communities, and ask trainees to access student loans just like their colleagues pursuing the same BED Basic Education programme in the universities do?

For decades, inclusive today, a teacher trainee at Accra College of Education (Madina), living in Madina and posted to Adenta will enjoy the allowance, eventhough Adenta is not deprived.

For the avoidance of doubt, the GHC 400 per month allowance constitutes up to 25% of a teacher’s salary in their first three years of work.

Targeting of social policies is key to achieving effectiveness.

While there is an obvious low Value For Money for the GHC 250 million Government is struggling to raise for this policy today, that cash can better achieve the policy objective if policy is re-positioned to target only teachers teaching in deprived communities.

© Africa Education Watch

“No nation can progress without a committed labour force. Employers must treat labour with dignity & respect. Happy Labour Day!”

This was Eduwatch’s message to employers to mark the International Labour Day 2022, a day set aside to acknowledge the contributions of labour towards national development worldwide.

© Africa Education Watch