Education Minister tasks GETFund board to prioritise basic school funding

A 17-member Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) board was last Friday inaugurated by the Minister of Education, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, in Accra.

The board, chaired by Emman­uel Kwasi Bedzrah, has Masawudu Mahama, representative from the Ministry of Finance; Rev. Dr Cyril Gershon Kwao Fayose represen­tative of religious bodies; Mr An­thony Kwasi Sarpong, Executive Secretary of the Revenue Agencies Governing Board; Mr Paul Adjei, Administrator of GETFund; Mrs Mamle D. Andrews, representative of the Ministry of Education; Prof. Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai, Ghana Tertiary Education Com­mission and Mr John Awuah of the Ghana Bankers Association as members.

Other members include; Ghana Insurers Association, Mr Seth Kobla Aklasi; National Pensions Regulatory Authority, Patience Ablah Ganyo; Technical Universi­ties Rev. Prof. John Frank Eshun; Ghana National Association of Teachers, Ms Philippa Larsen; National Union of Ghana students and the Ghana National Union of Polytechnics students in rotation, Mr Daniel Nii Korley Botchway.

The rest are the Association of Ghana Industries, Grace Amey-Obeng; the National Council on women and development, Ms Francisca Atuluk; Ghana Employ­ers’ Association, Mr Alexander Frimpong and Ghana Education Service Council, Prof. Ernest Kofi Davis.

Inaugurating the board, Mr Iddrisu noted that the newly constituted board must to work to realign funding allocation of the fund.

He said this alignment must reflect the President’s agenda on the education sector and in par­ticular the pursuit of policies that guaranteed that the country trained learners that were in tune with 21st century competencies, values and aptitudes.

“In that regard, it is my wish to request your Board that basic education is fundamental to the success of any education pursuit. Indeed, I have no fear of con­tradiction that if we don’t get it right at the basic education level, we are not likely to get it right at free senior high school and higher education,” he stressed.

The Minister also indicated that the board must prioritise the funding of basic education, stressing that, “30 years on, after the promulgation of the 1992 Constitution, it’s not acceptable for Ghana to say that we have not attained free, compulsory, universal basic education.”

He said ideally, the sharing quota should have been 35 per cent to­wards basic education, 40 per cent into higher education and 25 per cent to free senior high school.

This, he emphasised, was based on condition that we still had some financing support from the Min­istry of Finance from the annual budget funding amount, which remained a primary source of the financing of education, even by the proponents and those who introduced free senior high school.

On his part, the board chairman of the fund, Mr Bedzrah, said they considered the opportunity given them as a privilege to serve the country but also a call to duty.

He recalled that the infamous Mombrawa Struggle at the Uni­versity of Ghana in 1999 when the issue of cost sharing was introduced at the tertiary level of our education in Ghana leading to the establishment of GetFund as an innovative approach to funding not only tertiary, but public educa­tion in Ghana.

Mr Bedzrah again noted that the capping of the fund rendered its operations ineffective, saying that “It however, came as a great relief when the President, through the Minister of Finance, requested Parliament to uncap the Fund, and thankfully, this has been done.”

 BY CLIFF EKUFUL

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