Manual for School Management Committees in the Offing

A project has begun to document best practices and experiences of school management committees (SMCs) to help guide others for improved education delivery in the country.

The year-long project, which will end in October, is being implemented by Choice Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, with support from Gower Street.

To this end, a stakeholders' identification, mapping and analysis meeting towards codifying the works and experiences of SMC networks in promoting good governance and accountability in the education system has been held in Tamale.

Representatives of civil society organisations working in the education sector and parent-teacher associations including the media took part in the meeting.

Mr Mohammed Seidu, Executive Director of Choice Ghana, during the meeting, explained that SMCs were very critical because of the roles they play in education delivery at the community level, hence need to document their achievements and experiences to serve as a reference to others.

Choice Ghana has worked with a number of SMCs in various districts in the Northern Region and has formed SMC networks in some districts including Kpandai, which has proven to be a much more efficient way of building and empowering SMCs to influence the system and take actions for quality education delivery.

However, it has been realised that there is no blueprint that will serve as a reference document on SMCs, a situation, which affects education delivery in the country.

SMCs are responsible for strengthening community participation and mobilisation for quality education delivery.

Mr Seidu said, "We are going to identify partners that are working with SMC networks and also reach out to SMC networks to gather information on some of the achievements made and what has been done to improve education delivery" to guide others.

He said "to ensure transparency and good governance in the education sector, it is very important that we are able to take structures at the local level seriously" adding "when SMCs are networked from the community level to the district level, they are better recognised by the duty-bearers," which was important in improved education delivery.

Mr Gaskin Dassah, National Coordinator of Northern Network for Education Development suggested the need to consult other regions and national level institutions to gather more information on SMC practices and activities to ensure that the manual to be developed would be acceptable to all.

Mr Askia Mohammed Prince, Deputy Director, Northern Regional Directorate of Education lauded the initiative saying it would ensure efficiency in education delivery as all partners would actively participate in efforts to improve education delivery in the country.

GNA

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