On Wednesday August 21, Eduwatch honoured an invitation from the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), to participate in a Public Forum on Media, Peace and Democratic Consolidation in Ghana. The Forum was held in partnership with the National Peace Council, National Commission for Civic Education, National Media Commission and the National House of Chiefs.

The aim of the public forum was to discuss the challenges of hate speech and mis/disinformation, polarisation, and communal violence in Ghana, within the context of the 7th December 2024 general elections, and profer solutions to same.

In the Keynote Speech delivered by the Konor of Manya Krobo and President of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, Nene Sakite II, he bemoaned the promotion of hate speech by major stakeholders, who by their designation should be promoting national and communal harmony. Nene Sakite II, among others, advocated for chieftaincy institutions to be resourced to quickly act in resolving conflicts, for security institutions to be resourced to adequately deal with chieftaincy and societal conflicts, and for the citizenry to uphold their duty to promote peaceful engagements, and ensure tranquility in enstooling traditional rulers, voting for Members of Parliament and Heads of State.

A panel was constituted to discuss the role of political parties and the media in countering hate speech, promoting community resilience, peace journalism, and fact-based conflict-sensitive reporting for peaceful elections in 2024. Panelists stressed the need for media conversations to be navigated beyond mere publicity, click baits and eyeballs, ahead of the 2024 general elections. According to the panel, the media, beyond being a business, is a social institution with a responsibility to promote societal development through the intentional broadcast of facts, peace and harmony. Thus, spewing falsehoods and hate speech must be eschewed and guarded by the gatekeepers (media/journalists).

Panelists, including representatives of political parties, media organisations, academia and civil society, recommended among others the promotion of sociocultural reporting, for journalists to work on sensitive issues and produce unbiased and factual reports, while engaging experts on sensitive issues, instead of habitually engaging politicians.

Participants in the Forum included representatives from civil society, religious and traditional bodies, academia, security agencies, political parties and the media. Eduwatch was represented by Programme Officer, Kwasi Nimo Jnr.

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On Friday August 9, Eduwatch eumerators, with support from the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), completed six weeks of field data gathering for an on-going study - "Building Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) systems for Economic Transformation."

The study, which seeks to investigate how Ghana’s TVET system is responsive to digital skills demands in the 4th Industrial Revolution, saw the Data Gathering Team engage officials of the Ministry of Education, Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Ghana TVET Service, school heads, teachers and students of Technical Vocational Institutes (TVIs), parents, Development Partners, CSOs, and Master Craft Persons (MCPs) in the Northern, Ashanti and Greater Accra regions.

Team Eduwatch and ACET appreciate the support of all stakeholders during the period. Eduwatch will analyze the data gathered, and in addition to reviewed literature, publish a report on the research findings in the coming weeks.

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To foster the achievement of the policy objectives of the Education Strategic Plan 2018-2030 and key education Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets by 2030, civil society organisations (CSOs) have outlined key areas that political parties’ manifestoes must tackle, including spending efficiency, quality and increased funding on the basic level.

The CSOs, including the Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), in a bid to influence manifestoes toward attaining these goals, have engaged the policy formulation committees of the main parties, making these important recommendations.

The Eduwatch, in its education manifesto engagement document dubbed ‘EduFesto’, highlighted various gaps and the pragmatic policy decisions required to address them from the basic to tertiary levels.

For instance, in the area of accountability and spending efficiency, the CSOs recommended the need to ensure governing boards of education sector institutions have key performance indicators (KPIs) on the supervision of finance, procurement and general statutory compliance to reduce financial waste, while enforcing competitive procurement as a norm, rather than an exception.

Basic education level

Access, quality and governance were the key highlights at the basic level. Specific policy decisions expected in the manifestoes at this level include Developing and implementing a five-year plan to remove all schools under trees; Pursuing Primary to Junior High School (JHS) parity in infrastructure; Roll out a plan to provide ICT facilities and desks to all public-basic schools; Promote gender transformative and climate responsive education; and Roll out a plan to provide Science and Mathematics learning kits for all public basic schools.

Others include Implementing a 20 percent allowance for teachers who teach in deprived communities; Implementing a demand-driven decentralised teacher recruitment system; Strengthening training systems, facilities, furniture and supervision in Kindergartens; Developing basic practical agriculture (farming) in JHS; and Developing assessment tools for measuring pupils’ attainment of the 21st-century skills focused on in the Standard Based Curriculum.

Secondary and TVET education

At the Senior High School (SHS) and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) level, the policy think-tank recommended Decentralised food procurement to secondary schools and enhanced funds disbursement; Publish school placement data on the computerised school selection and placement system website and school notice boards; Re-set the academic system to release Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results before secondary school selection; Migrate the free SHS Secretariat and the management of free SHS from the Ministry of Education (MoE) to Ghana Education Service (GES); and Develop a means-testing mechanism to target free SHS. This includes identifying the poor, using comprehensive national household registry data.

Pre-tertiary external assessment

Regarding policies around external assessment to qualify for the tertiary level, Eduwatch recommends the Establishment of an independent regulator for the pre-tertiary assessment sector; Amendment of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) law to address new dynamics in examination fraud; Install CCTV cameras in examination halls to eliminate exam malpractice; Exclude teachers from invigilation and supervision; and Pilot e-testing in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination.

Tertiary

Institute a Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET)/Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) study support financial scheme; Establish business incubation and start-up support schemes in TVET institutes and Technical Universities for TVET graduates; and Scrap the teacher training allowance and strengthen the Student Loan Scheme to cover all tertiary students, including teacher trainees.

Financials

With funding remaining a major challenge to the provision of education infrastructure and eliminating schools under trees, the CSO is hoping to see manifestoes targeting to Uncap and commit a minimum of 33 percent of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to basic education infrastructure; Automatically benchmark the Capitation Grant and Ghana School Feeding Programme against inflation, using an indexation mechanism; Commit 50 percent of education expenditure to basic education; and Develop a Legislative Instrument for the Pre-Tertiary Education Act of 2020 (Act 1049), and specify funding norms for all sub-sectors.

Source: thebftonline

On July 26, Eduwatch published its Education Manifesto for Election 2024 engagement, titled EDUFESTO 2024. The document was used in Political Party Manifesto Influencing, towards achieving a balanced attainment of the policy objectives of Ghana's Education Strategic Plan (ESP 2018-2030) and the Sustainable Development Goal 4.

Among others, the document elaborates Eduwatch's key recommendations on education financing, particularly spending efficiency and equitable spending in the financing of basic, secondary, tertiary, complementary and special education, as well as Technical and Vocational Education and Training.

EDUFESTO 2024 is available via the link below:
https://africaeducationwatch.org/publication/edufesto-2024

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On Friday, July 19, Eduwatch joined a side event at the 6th AU Mid-Year Coordination Summit, to discuss Ghana’s progress on promoting Gender Transformative Education (GTE) within its education system.

Senior Programme Officer at Eduwatch, Divine Kpe, in his submission, observed that, while Ghana has over the years prioritized girls and boys’ education, interventions primarily targeted enrollment and not necessarily promoting gender empowerment, inclusion and assertiveness, which are key central themes of GTE. The concept of GTE, which seeks to achieve the latter, is however, an emerging concept within Ghana’s education system for which there has been some modest progress.

He further noted that, Eduwatch, as a member of the Teacher Education Curriculum Framework Review Technical Working Group, is influencing the review of the curriculum framework to ensure issues of GTE are adequately captured, to empower teacher trainees to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for promoting a gender transformative school environment.

The event, organized by Oxfam saw in attendance the Deputy Minister for Education, Hon. Ntim Fordjour, and representatives from the Complementary Education Agency, FOSDA, School for Life, GNECC, CSOs Platform on the SDGs, and the All African Students Union.

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