The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) has disbursed over GH¢4.3 billion to various institutions and agencies under the Ministry of Education to support their activities.

Of the amount, GH¢1.4 billion has been used to settle 922 interim payment certificates submitted to the fund by various contractors.

Additionally, GH¢1 billion has been channelled towards procuring seven million laptops and tablets for senior high school teachers and students.

The laptops will be distributed to the teachers, while the tablets will go to the students under the government digitalisation drive.

Other disbursements

GETFund has also released GH¢1.1 billion to the Free SHS Secretariat towards the smooth running of the SHS programme, while GH¢100 million has been forwarded to the Students Loan Trust Fund to administer the government’s No Fee Stress policy.

Furthermore, GH¢200 million was disbursed to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to organise this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and another GH¢300 million to the Youth Employment Authority (YEA) to address its education-related activities.

The Scholarship Secretariat also received GH¢7 million from GTEFund, while GH¢28 million went to the Ministry of Education and its agencies for their operational and other related activities.

Likewise, a total of GH¢40 million went to four relatively new public universities as seed capital towards addressing some of the challenges confronting their respective institutions.

The beneficiary institutions are the C. K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS), Navrongo, in the Upper East Region, S.D. Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in Wa, in the Upper West Region, University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani, in the Bono Region, and the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in Ho, in the Volta Region.

GETFund mandate

Throwing more light on the disbursement, the GETFund Administrator, Paul Adjei, explained in an interview with the Daily Graphic that the disbursement covered January to August 2025.

He said the disbursement was part of the GETFund’s mandate to ensure that the various establishments under the Ministry of Education had enough funds to operate smoothly.

Mr Adjei explained that the 922 interim payment certificates were in respect of work already done, but payments were yet to be honoured.

On the Free SHS policy, he explained that per the 2025 budget, GETFund was the source of funding for the programme, adding that the total budget allocation was GH¢3.4 billion, “meaning an amount of GH¢2.3 billion is yet to be released.”

“The good thing is that with a dedicated funding source, the issue of no funds for the running of the schools is out of the way.

With a dedicated funding, there won’t be any fear of disruption in the academic calendar,” he explained further.

He said the government sought ways to cure WAEC’s annual challenge of having to look for funds to conduct its examinations, especially the WASSCE.

“Remember, in the previous years, the writing of the WASSCE was always shaky because of a lack of funds.

That has been effectively addressed,” Mr Adjei added.