On Wednesday February 7, Eduwatch honoured an invitation from Vice President Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia to witness his address to the nation. The event took place at the Kofi Ohene-Konadu Auditorium of the University of Development Studies, Accra.

The event, which was an official launch of the Vice President's presidential campaign in the run up to December 2024 elections was themed "Ghana’s next chapter: selfless leadership and bold solutions for the future."

Dr. Bawumia in his speech, outlined some key achievements under the Nana Akufo-Addo-led government, while announcing his policy propositions, including the introduction of a growth mindset curriculum to help students build critical skills such us problem solving, risk taking, opportunity spotting and design thinking and training of youth in IT skills. He also indicated plans to make national service voluntary among others.

Participants at the event were drawn from Civil Society, the Majority caucus in Parliament, the New Patriotic Party, academia, traditional and religious bodies, students’ and teachers’ unions, trades and commerce sector, and sympathizers.

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On Friday February 16, Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) participated in an inception meeting with the Manifesto Committee of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Accra.

The meeting saw Eduwatch present a contextual analysis of Ghana's education sector, with recommendations for consideration by the Manifesto Committee in drafting the NDC’s 2024 manifesto. The inception meeting was a curtain raiser for a series of meetings Eduwatch will be holding with the various political parties as part of our Education Manifesto Influencing activities ahead of the 2024 general elections.

Eduwatch was represented by our Executive Director, Kofi Asare and Senior Programme Officer, Divine Kpe.

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On Monday February 19, Eduwatch, a member of the Ghana Parliamentary Monitoring Organisations Network (GPMON), joined other Network members to engage an international delegation comprising the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the House Democracy Partnership (HDP), International Republican Institute (IRI), and United States Congressional staff in a fact-finding mission of Ghana's Parliamentary operations. The meeting with GPMON (Civil Society Organisations working with Parliament) was requested by the delegation.

The fact-finding mission was aimed at enabling the international delegation learn more about the internal operations of Ghana's Parliament, and its relationship with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including their representational capacity, to inform planning of possible future engagement between Parliament and the HDP.

Civil Society representatives were given the opportunity to share experiences in working with Parliament. Other discussions bordered on the activeness of the various Parliamentary Committees and their level of engagement with Civil Society.

Speaking on behalf of Eduwatch, our Programme Officer, Kwasi Nimo Jnr indicated a very good and active working relationship with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, which had led to some key advocacy milestones over the years. He added that, the Committee has been one of the primary consumers of the researches/studies conducted by Eduwatch, most of which have been referred to at their meetings and in submissions on the floor of Parliament.

Discussions were also held on the need to build the capacity of Parliamentarians in the area of research, to improve/compliment their engagement with CSOs. The issue of ineffective representation of citizens by Members of Parliament (MPs) was also discussed, with recommendations made on the need to build the capacity of citizens to be informed on their representational mandate by their MPs, to further inform accountability demands.

Participants in the meeting representing the GPMON included representatives from the Parliamentary Network Africa, BudgIt Ghana, Norsaac, Penplusbytes and the Ghana Anti-corruption Coalition.

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On Monday February 19, Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) participated in the Official Kickoff/launch of the African Youth International Internship Program (AYIIP). The Program, which is being hosted in Ghana by Youth Bridge Foundation, is led by the McMaster University, Empowerment Squared and Schools of Dreams, all based in Canada, with support from the Canadian Government.

The AYIIP is a four-year international internship program by Global Affairs Canada aimed at enhancing the capacity of Canadian youth through transformative 6-8 month long internship placements in Ghana and Liberia to conduct various researches. Eduwatch was engaged by the School of Dreams on Friday February 2, to discuss partnership on the project.

Eduwatch, the University of Development Studies (UDS) and the Law and Development Associates (LADA) are the three selected Ghanaian organisations to host interns from the Program.

The Kickoff was attended by representatives of the Canadian High Commission, Ghana's Ministry of Education, and other notable institutions, to connect the consortium of organizations who would be working on the Program. Eduwatch was represented by our Program Officer, Kwasi Nimo Jnr.

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The death of two boarding students in February 2024 in second cycle schools has ignited discussions about the status of emergency or first aid healthcare needs of students.

With most of these cases emanating from the lack of quality healthcare facilities and effective systems for managing health cases in Senior High Schools, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), including Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), have called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to undertake a comprehensive audit, and liaise with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to address possible shortfalls.

The death of a student of Kalpohin Senior High School (SHS) in Sagnarigu District of the Northern Region, on 20th February, 2024, was the second within a two-week interval after a female student at Aburi Girls’ SHS also lost her life due to lack of medical attention. This brings to at least four more of such cases widely reported since 2017.

Mostly, fellow student eye witnesses to the incidents and sources close to the occurrences mention that the students were sick, authorities refused to give an exeat to go home for treatment and kept them in school until the situation gets worse.

Sadly, the response of the school authorities is usually to deny complicity, rather than initiate meaningful reforms of the health management systems at the SHS level.

However, the CSOs stressed that a rapid diagnosis of these events points to one thing - the lack of explicit guidelines on health case management in schools. This gap leaves school authorities to act with discretion in determining whether a sick student should be treated in school and discharged, sent home for treatment, taken to hospital by school authorities for treatment or be handed to their parents for treatment in a hospital.

With this backdrop, Eduwatch underscored the need for GES to collaborate with the Ghana Health Service to find a lasting solution. It highlighted that by liaising with the GHS, the GES would be able to develop and implement a more pragmatic case management protocol for handling sick students in second cycle schools.

This, according to the CSOs, must include a procedure to monitor the implementation of the protocols and mainstream same into indicators for school supervision and the Key Performance Indicators of school heads.

The partnership can also ensure sick bays have the required drugs, competent personnel and transport facilities to deliver quality healthcare to students and staff on campuses.

The CSOs hold strongly that the state of sick bays in some of the high schools must be concerning to stakeholders, with challenges ranging from personnel and facilities to medicines. There are many schools where sick bays run cash and carry on medicines, in spite of students having NHIS cards.

Parent associations and old students associations must be interested in the state and functioning of health facilities in these schools, while providing support.

Ghana is the only country operating a public boarding secondary education system, with over one million students in boarding houses. The schools have grown in population from institutions of learning to full communities, with some schools having about 6,000 students and staff on campus. It is, therefore, important to prioritise the delivery of primary healthcare in our schools and strengthen the referral systems.

Source: thebftonline.com

On Monday, February 26, in collaboration with the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), Eduwatch embarked on a CSO-Media visit to the Gushegu municipality to monitor the availability of desks in some public basic schools, following the distribution of 13,465 dual desks to basic schools by GETFund between 2022 and 2023. The Monitoring Team comprised of GETFund officials from Accra and Tamale, the Eduwatch Team and media representatives. The objective was to assess the desks situation and their impact on teaching and learning.

On Tuesday, February 27, Team Eduwatch and TV3 proceeded to the Kintampo North municipality to monitor/assess their desks situation to inform our advocacy.

Gushegu municipal received 180 dual desks from the GETFund 2022/23 supply. The highest number of desks supplied to a school was 10, and the least was two (2). The Team visited the Gushegu M/A Primary Block A which received 10 dual desks, and were being used by the Primary four (4) class. Gushegu M/A Junior High School (JHS) also received five (5) dual desks, and were being used by the JHS 1 class. The two classes had a student population of 57 and 68 using 15 and 18 desks respectively.

Kintampo North, did not receive any desks from the GETFund distribution. Both Jato Akura and Gruma-line Islamic Basic Schools which Eduwatch visited, over the years, have had to compel parents to buy desks for their wards transitioning from Primary 6 to Junior High School (JHS) due to the non-availability of desks for the JHS. This, according to them negatively affect enrolment, transition and completion. "In 2022 for instance, 14 out of 44 pupils who completed Primary 6 in Gruma-line Islamic Basic School could not transition to JHS 1, partly due to their parents inability to buy them desks" - a teacher shared.

The Municipal Education Directors for Gushegu and Kintampo North indicated that, though desks supplied/donated to their assemblies were welcome additions, they mostly represented a drop in a bucket considering the student population and huge desks deficits their municipalities faced.

Eduwatch, as part of post-monitoring activities, will share findings from the field monitoring and engage key policy stakeholders as part of our advocacy for improved desks availability in our public basic schools. The CSO-Media Basic School Desks Monitoring is part of activities under the SERVE III project being implemented by Eduwatch with support from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and in partnership with STAR Ghana Foundation.

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On Thursday February 29, Eduwatch met with stakeholders from the Office of the Head of Local Government Service (OHLGS), Ga South Municipal and Ada West District Assemblies and Education Directorates to validate the draft Corporate Support Framework for Basic Education Infrastructure. The meeting was chaired by the Chief Director of the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council, Mrs Lillian Baeka, under the auspices of the Chief Director of the OHLGS.

Following an earlier high level meeting and a broader stakeholder convening to discuss the draft Framework, this meeting aimed at validating and finalising the framework ahead of a pilot implementation in March 2024 in the two aforementioned local assemblies. Concerns raised in the broader stakeholder convening including the opening of the Basic Education Infrastructure Fund account and the role of the Ghana Education Service in supporting the Corporate Support Desk at the Assembly to implement the Framework, were discussed at length and finalised.

As part of next steps from the meeting, Eduwatch will finalise the Framework with inputs from the meeting, hold inception meetings with the two local assemblies within the first week of March to kick-start the pilot process, and engage key partners such as ActionAid to support the pilot.

The development of the Corporate Support Framework for Basic Education Infrastructure is part of activities under the SERVE III project being implemented by Eduwatch with support from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and in partnership with STAR Ghana Foundation.

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On Thursday February 29, an Eduwatch team met with the new leadership of Media General/TV3's News Team to discuss ways of strengthening our election partnership for political party education manifesto influencing ahead of election 2024. The meeting was an opportunity for both parties to apprise each other on strategies and preparations ahead of the general elections in December.

Our Executive Director, Kofi Asare, outlined some innovative ways to get the Manifesto Committees of the two leading political parties to focus on the key issues in the education sector. Eduwatch believes that conversations around education in this year's elections must be well targeted and not subjected to wholesale and generic discussions that yield little to no policy action when a political party wins the elections.

Eduwatch's Manifesto Engagement Strategy aims to project key educational issues, including education financing, basic education infrastructure and inclusion, for the needed attention of political party Manifesto Committees ahead of the 2024 Presidential elections. The Team intends to involve the media heavily in its strategy to improve the quality of conversations surrounding education heading to the polls.

Media General is a key Eduwatch partner in education policy influencing. Eduwatch will also continue to engage the Manifesto Committees of the two leading political parties to ensure the that the provisions in our Manifesto Engagement Strategy find expression in their final manifestos.

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