Participants at the First Annual Stakeholders' Educational Accountability Forum have called on the Government to suspend the replacement of printed textbooks with laptops programme.
They said, 'Instead, government should prioritise interventions aimed at addressing the infrastructure deficits, especially in basic schools in the seven underserved regions.'
They said 'We, together recognised the significance of digital transformation in educational outcomes and its impact in promoting literacy and STEM education. However, we are of the view that faced with over 5,400 schools under trees and two million basic school pupils without desks, this beautiful intervention is ill-timed.'
This was contained in a communique issued by School for Life, an NGO, and partners after the forum, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Tamale on Friday.
The forum held in Tamale on June 06, 2023, was organised by School for Life and its consortium partners on the theme: 'Bridging the Access and Quality Gap in Public Basic Education, The Effects of Infrastructure Deficits and Policy Implications.'
It served as a platform to address critical issues concerning the provision and delivery of education specifically focusing on the infrastructure deficits faced by public basic schools in the northern regions including Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper East and Upper West Regions.
Over 200 esteemed individuals including a former Director-General of Ghana Education Service, Regional Directors of Education, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Directors of Education, North East Regional Minister, Metropolitan, Municipal and District chief Executives (MMDCEs),
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) representatives, teachers, youth, citizen groups, and media practitioners participated in the forum.
The communique said: 'Alarming statistics reveal that approximately 2.3 million basic school pupils lack proper classroom furniture with the most severe conditions observed in the five northern regions, with the Northern Region leading with 213,352 public primary school pupils without desks, followed by the Upper East (118,340), Savannah (29,595), Upper West (71,297), and North East (67,356).'
The communique emphasized 'The need to increase the visibility of these infrastructure deficits in public basic schools as it is essential for stakeholders to recognise and invest in addressing these challenges within the education sector.'
The forum recognised the shift in donor focus away from service provision to advocacy, noting that the service delivery interventions served as stop gaps as well as a complementary support to the government in addressing the infrastructure deficits at the basic level, particularly in rural northern Ghana.'
It said: 'Considering the current macro-economic challenges of the country, which are affecting government's ability to effectively finance infrastructure needs of the basic schools, we call on the donor community to reflect critically on this and include strategic service delivery into their basic education programme interventions.'
According to the communique, it was crucial to allocate sufficient funds, materials, and personnel to schools in the northern regions to ensure they receive the necessary support to provide quality education.
'We draw attention to the fact that any decline in national allocation of the GETFund has a more detrimental impact on the northern regions. To respond to the resource allocation constraint, we emphasize the importance of collaboration between Directors of Education at the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), Members of Parliament and CSOs to promote investment in educational infrastructure.'
It called on 'the MMDAs to fund the oversight duties of the District Education Oversight Committees' urging the district Directors of Education to proactively develop engagement plans with CSOs to address challenges in school infrastructure and teacher deployment leveraging data from the Education Management Information System (EMIS).'
It said 'CSOs should continue to push for the de-capping of the GETFund to free funds for basic education infrastructure.'
It recognised the significance of engaging communities in the education process saying, 'The Education Re-entry Policy, the Early Childhood Education Policy among others were highlighted as policies that need community support to be successful.'
The communique commended 'The Northern Regional Minister for directing all MMDAs in the region to review their infrastructure plans and urged other ministers to follow suit.'
Source: Ghana News Agency