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The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has tasked an eight-member National Education Forum Planning Committee to help in finding answers as to how government can sustain the free senior high school policy.
He said the policy remained one of the boldest steps and reforms of the educational system, but acknowledged that the country was struggling with how to finance it.
“Can your committee help in finding answers as to how we can sustain this laudable initiative? And make sure that when we pledge that we provide feeding, we provide it timely, in quality and in the right quantities,” he told the Chairman of the Committee.
The minister was speaking after leading the members of the committee to take the oath of office and secrecy to mark its inauguration and commencement of work.
With a two-week ultimatum to submit its report and plan, the committee is Chaired by a former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Professor George K.T. Oduro.
Other members are Professor Goski Alabi, Professor Rosemary Bosu, Dr Samuel Awuku and Professor Smile Dzisi. The rest are Kofi Asare, Stephen Owusu and Inusah Shiraz.
As part of the Terms of Reference, the committee is to develop a theme and sub-themes to guide the stakeholder engagement, identify key stakeholders in the education sector, including students, parents, teachers, researchers, civil society organisations and development partners.
Other stakeholders are religious bodies, political parties, Ghanaian educational researchers in the diaspora, chiefs, heads of educational institutions, Parliamentary Select Committee on Education among others.
The committee is also expected to develop a stakeholder activity agenda with time allocations, propose a venue and date(s) for the forum, set up a secretariat to document activities and provide a budget for the National Education Forum.
Additionally, the committee is to develop a comprehensive report detailing the findings and recommendations of the forum, draft a national education policy framework and propose an action plan for implementing recommendations within three weeks after the forum and finally, consider any other issue relevant to the organisation of the forum.
On tertiary education, Mr Iddrisu tasked the committee to also look at “how the country Ghana is responding to the future aspirations of the country.”
He observed that the country did not adequately prepare for the absorption of the exponential increase in numbers of the products of the free SHS.
Mr Iddrisu noted that residential and academic infrastructure were not adequate enough in any of the public universities, describing the situation as a challenge.
The minister said there were 150,000 to 300,000 Ghanaian students who naturally would have aspirations to access higher education and tertiary education.
He said as far as President John Dramani Mahama was concerned, “all is not well,” adding that the President did not pretend to have the answers or the solutions to the “myriad of problems affecting equitable quality provision of education to deserving Ghanaians.”
The minister said the Constitution in Articles 25 and 38 guaranteed every Ghanaian equal opportunities to education, but questioned whether that was the case.
“Is that the case? Have we attained free, compulsory, universal basic education? It is only your committee that can find answers to many of these questions?” he told the committee.
Mr Iddrisu further wondered what affirmative interventions the President and the Ministry of Education, through its executing agencies, could do to address the imbalances and disparity in the provision of equitable, accessible education at all levels of education.
In an acceptance speech, Prof. Oduro thanked the Presidency and the sector minister for the trust reposed on the members, giving an assurance that the committee would work within the constraints of time to deliver as expected.
The Chief Director of the ministry, Maamle Andrews, in a welcome address, explained that the members were carefully selected to ensure a balanced discourse on education and assured the committee that the ministry would do everything to ensure that their work was successful.
