On Monday August 7, Eduwatch published Volume 28 of its Education Alert. The brief analysed Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) participation over the past decade, ahead of the 2023 examinations.

The brief noted that, out of the 906,000 pupils who enrolled in KG 1 in 2012, only 67% (600,000) sat for the BECE this year. Also, for the first time in recent history, Ghana presented more female candidates (300,391) than males (300,323) even though fewer females (49.6%) enrolled when the current cohort commenced their basic education journey in 2012.

As part of the recommendations in the brief, Eduwatch called on Government to urgently convene stakeholders to discuss basic education survival and the alarming dropout rates. Also, Eduwatch recommended further research to ascertain the whereabouts of the 300,000 pupils.

The brief can be accessed via the link below:
https://africaeducationwatch.org/alert/policy-brief-vol-28

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On Tuesday August 8, Eduwatch participated in a Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) forum/consultation organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office in Ghana, as part of developing the 2023 National Human Development Report (NHDR). The forum was one of three engagements by the UNDP to solicit inputs through Focus Group Discussions (FGD) to aid the development of the NHDR.

Speaking ahead of the FGD, Senior Economist at UNDP, Fatmata L. Sesay indicated that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals required innovative approaches to shaping development interventions. She added that the engagement with CSOs, Youth Groups and the Private Sector will go a long way in shaping the outcome of the report.

The National Development Report is UNDP's flagship publication on topical development issues that seek to enrich and provide policy and analytical tools to countries worldwide including Ghana. The theme for the 2023 NHDR is "The future value of work in Ghana; Pathways to Sustainable Jobs", and it aims to address issues around the value of work for sustainable development.

Participating CSOs included WiLDAF Ghana, ICDP and NORSAAC. Eduwatch was represented by our Programme Officer, Kwasi Nimo Jnr.

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On Wednesday, August 16, Eduwatch launched the third edition of its annual Open Governance Index (OGI III) Report on Education Sector Institutions (ESIs). The OGI III assesses the responsiveness of the Ministry of Education and its 17 agencies to 12 Open Governance Indicators based on which performance scores were assigned.

Key Findings

1. The National Schools Inspectorate Authority recorded the highest possible OGI Score of 12; the most responsive ESI.
2. The Encyclopedia Africa Project, GETFund, and Students Loan Trust Fund improved upon their scores from OGI II (5, 5 and 7) to 8, 9 and 10 respectively.
3. The official telephone line of the Ministry of Education had been inactive since 2021.
4. 80 per cent of institutions had not published their strategic plans on their official websites.
5. 80 per cent of institutions had not published their 2021 Annual Peports on their official websites.
6. 50 per cent of institutions did not respond to calls placed to their official telephone lines.
7. The percentage of ESIs with responsive telephone lines reduced from 80 (in OGI II) to 50.
8. The percentage of ESIs with frequently updated social media handles reduced from 95 (in OGI II) to 75.
9. The percentage of ESIs with Information Officers increased from 50 (in OGI II) to 100.
10. Nine (9) out of the 16 Public Universities did not respond to calls placed to their official telephone lines.

Recommendations
1. The Ministry of Education should supervise the adoption of Open Governance Standards by its agencies through KPIs.
2. Education Sector Agencies should improve responsiveness of their emails, telephone lines; and frequently update their social media platforms, and websites. Annual Performance Reports must be published on websites.
3. Management of Public Universities should supervise responsiveness of their telephone lines for improved public access to information.

The full report can be accessed via the link below:
https://africaeducationwatch.org/publication/ogi-3-report

© Africa Education Watch

On Wednesday August 23, Eduwatch joined other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in a one-day engagement on a draft new Secondary School Curriculum. The engagement was organised by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA).

The event sought to elicit inputs from CSOs on the draft new curriculum before its finalisation and submission to cabinet for approval. Key highlights of the curriculum reform include; reduction of the number of subjects from 62 to 31, the move from programme selection to subjects selection, inclusion of Physical Education as an elective subject, introduction of social emotional learning strands, and emphasis on formative assessment.

Speaking on behalf of Eduwatch, Senior Programme Officer, Divine Kpe indicated that, one challenge with the current curriculum is the large content of certain subjects which teachers struggle to complete with the students within the less-than-three years they spend in school. He therefore recommended that the SHS curriculum reform should be in sync with the basic education curriculum reform, which adopted the concept of 'depth and breadth of learning' by treating fewer but key strands that enable learners the opportunity of learning and building on contents of those strands as they progress from one class to the other.

Participating CSOs included Star Ghana Foundation, GNECC, FOSDA, IFEST, YEfL, NORSAAC, Associates for Change and CAPCOE.

© Africa Education Watch

On Monday, August 28, Eduwatch partnered the Member of Parliament for the Okaikwei Central Constituency, Hon. Patrick Yaw Boamah, to engage a section of graduates from this year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in a career guidance and training seminar at St. Charles Lwanga Roman Catholic Church's Conference Hall in Abeka. The event was patronised by over 800 BECE graduates within and around the constituency.

The seminar aimed at guiding the fresh graduates through Senior High School and Technical and Vocational Education and Training schools' selection. Graduates were counseled on the need to choose better and appropriate career paths for their future endeavors. Participants were also admonished by a host of distinguished guests at the seminar.

Eduwatch was represented by our Executive Director and Inclusion Fellow, Stella Gyimaah Larbi, and were joined by Alex Osei - a TVET Consultant and Abena Addo - Team Lead, Youth Impact, among other distinguished guests.

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Africa Education Watch has launched two reports on equitable education at the University of Ghana. Both reports – “Girls’ Participation in Basic Education: What are the gaps?”, and “Towards a Gender Responsive Basic Education system in West Africa”, which were funded by Oxfam and aimed at directing education policies in West Africa towards achieving gender responsiveness.

Girls’ Participation in Basic Education: What are the gaps?
The report appreciates that, while some countries, including Ghana, have achieved gender parity at the basic level, the high number of out-of-school children, school dropouts, child labour and child marriage cases, sexual and reproductive gender-based violence, gender non-responsive teaching and school management approaches, corporal punishment, distance commuted to school, etc. continue to affect the full completion of both boys and girls at the basic level.

Towards a Gender Responsive Basic Education System in West Africa:
The report observes that the high levels of basic school dropouts and out-of-school children in the sub-region raise questions about the relevance of gender parity. In Ghana, for instance, while about one million children aged 4–17 are out of school, Nigeria, the country with the third highest number of out-of-school children after India and Pakistan, had about 10 million not in primary school alone. On dropouts, while Ghana loses about a third of its pupils before basic school completion, about 35 per cent of Nigerian students are unable to transition into secondary schools.

Child labour was identified as a major factor limiting the participation of boys in basic education, with high levels of prevalence recorded in Nigeria, Mali, and Ghana, among others, in spite of West African countries signing the ILO Convention 182 prohibiting all forms of child and forced labour. It notes that, while Nigeria leads the child labour chart in West Africa with some 15 million children, Ghana had about 419,252 children aged 5–17 involved in economic activity. In Mali, over 15,000 child were trafficked into La Cote d'Ivoire to work on plantations

For girls, sexual and reproductive gender-based violence was prominent in limiting their participation in basic education, manifesting in teenage pregnancy and child marriage. According to the report, even though many countries, including Liberia, Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Niger, had policies to prevent pregnancy in school and facilitate the re-entry of teenage mothers into school in the unfortunate incident of pregnancy, the fixation on an abstinence-only sex education policy, which has proven ineffective for decades, and poverty remained major obstacles to the prevention of pregnancy in school and the re-entry of teenage mothers.

Performing the launch, Madam Dorothy Konadu, Board Member of Eduwatch, charged West African governments to mainstream gender responsiveness into education plans, policies, budgets, monitoring, and evaluation systems to ensure the factors that kick boys and girls out of school are given a systemic response, rather than the usual ad-hoc, uncoordinated, project-based approach, which has for decades yielded very little dividend.

In his remark, Eduwatch Executive Director, Kofi Asare decried the status quo where about two-thirds of both boys and girls drop out before completing basic education as unacceptable and charged West African governments to pay policy-level attention to the factors that cause both boys and girls to drop out, including the full operationalization of the prohibition of child and forced labour in all countries.

While commending some African countries, including Ghana, for banning corporal punishment in schools, he observed that the use of administrative fiats to operationalize the ban was ineffective, hence the need to mainstream the ban on corporal punishment into law for effectiveness. On the next steps after the launch, he indicated that Eduwatch is already engaging the leadership of the Ghana Education Service on the key recommendations and would commence ECOWAS-level engagement in September.

Video documentary:
In addition to the launch of the two reports, Eduwatch premiered its latest documentary on girls’ participation in basic education in Tolon, Northern Ghana. The documentary features Fulera and Memunatu, two primary school graduates who reside in Lingbinsi, a remote village in Ghana’s Northern Region, but have to embark on a trek by foot that takes them through rugged terrain and across several miles, just to access lower secondary education.

Their local community has no Junior High School, so after completing primary school, they have to commute to one of the nearest Junior High Schools in Tolon. While in school, many other impediments exist in their way, including corporal punishment; identified as a threat to their retention. Their stories reflect the journey of countless Ghanaian girls in rural settlements, highlighting the importance of accessible education and safe learning environments.

Textbooks report: The convening also included stakeholder validation of a soon-to-be-published primary school textbook monitoring report from 20 districts. The report will be used to advocate increased financing, efficient distribution, and management of textbooks. A high-level validation of the report with the GES leadership is underway.

Present at the convening were district and municipal directors of Education, officials from the Ministry of Education, Local Government Service, Teacher Unions, Student Unions, and Civil Society Organisations.

Prior to the convening, Eduwatch on Monday August 28, held an Executive Briefing with the leadership of the Ghana Education Service Headquarters on findings from the textbook monitoring study.

Source: myjoyonline.com

On Thursday August 31, Eduwatch published three (3) materials, as part of our advocacy for improved gender responsiveness in basic education systems in Ghana and the West African sub-region. The publications were developed/produced by Eduwatch with support from Oxfam, and are as follows:

Girls Participation in Basic Education in Ghana: What are the Gaps?: The report examines the capacity of Ghana’s pre-tertiary education system’s to promote girls’ full participation in education, by identifying existing systems and practices that facilitate and/or discriminate against girls in school, including the root causes of the inequality and oppression of girls. The report can be accessed via the link below:
https://africaeducationwatch.org/publication/gpbe-report-2023

Towards Gender Responsiveness in Basic Education Systems in West Africa: The policy brief discusses the major issues affecting gender responsiveness in West African countries, and how governments can adopt remedial and preventive policies and community-level actions to enhance gender responsiveness in basic education. The brief can be accessed via link below:
https://africaeducationwatch.org/publication/gender-responsiveness-in-basic-educ-in-west-africa

Documentary on Barriers to Gender-friendly School Environment in Ghana’s Basic Schools: The documentary highlights the responsiveness of initial teacher education curriculum to gender equity and girls’ participation in education, the effects of distance to school on enrolment and retention, and prevalence of school-related gender-based violence. The documentary can be accessed via the link below:
https://africaeducationwatch.org/video/barriers-to-gender-friendly-school-environment

© Africa Education Watch

On Tuesday, September 5, Eduwatch honored an invitation from the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) to participate in a forum on Ghana's Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Transformation Agenda.

Findings from a youth-led monitoring of TVET transformation in Ghana, focusing on issues of access, quality and financing were presented and followed by panel discussions.

Contributing to the discussions, Eduwatch's Senior Programme Officer, Divine Kpe commended government for the TVET reforms in the last five (5) years, which included harmonising TVET institutions under one Ministry, establishing the Ghana TVET Service to focus on TVET delivery, establishment of 32 new state-of-the-art TVET institutions, increasing the number of free TVET beneficiary schools, introduction of Recognition of Prior Learning, Workplace Experience Learning, and the development of Institutional Greening Plan to integrate greening philosophies into TVET institutions.

Mr. Kpe however, called for increased investment by government in addressing the inadequacy of practical work done by students due to lack of resources, and the lack of boarding facilities in many of the institutions to accommodate students from distant communities. On greening TVET, he indicated the need for the development of a Green TVET Framework that provides focus and direction on transitioning all TVET institutions into green institutions.

Participants in the forum were drawn from the Commission for TVET, Ghana TVET Service, Oxfam, Nneka Youth Foundation and Accra Technical Training Centre.

© Africa Education Watch

Eduwatch joined state and non-state education actors on Wednesday, September 6, to mark the 2023 International Literacy Day under the auspices of Accra World Book Capital, Complementary Education Agency, and World Vision Ghana.

Speaking on the topic "Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Making more books available to Ghanaian children", panelists made the case for investment in libraries in rural areas, making more age-appropriate books available on the market, addressing the textbooks non-availability/inadequacy in schools, and the need for parents to reward their children with books as gifts, among others.

Eduwatch was represented by Senior Programme Officer, Divine Kpe.

© Africa Education Watch