Govt must address challenges in education sector — STAR-Ghana

The STAR-Ghana Foundation has called on the government to take steps to address key challenges in the education sector to improve education quality and outcomes. 

The Rights to Social Services Manager at STAR-Ghana Foundation, Raymond Danso, said the government needed to maximise the benefit of the ongoing National Education Forum to drive meaningful reforms and improve the quality of education.

"We are hopeful that something pragmatic will be done this time. We cannot continue to expect new things if we don't make the right decisions and be committed to practical solutions to address educational challenges," he said.

Mr Danso was speaking at the education forum and accountability framework convened at the Alisa Hotel in Accra for civil society organisations (CSOs) in the educational sector.

The forum was a coordinated effort to help the CSOs present a unified front at the National Education Forum as the nation discussed the challenges facing the education sector and proposed solutions.

Rationale

Mr Danso lauded the government for its willingness and readiness to engage largely with CSOs and the public, saying it offered the platform to consider alternative ideas that would help the education sector.

“We are very certain that the alternatives that we present by way of what has worked in the past and what we think would work would be a good foundation for the government to consider in terms of the new policies and to make a commitment, especially around issues of education, finance and infrastructure, teacher deployment and development,” he said.

He emphasised that the CSOs aimed at driving reforms, and would develop and soon launch a tracking tool to be used by CSOs for monitoring the government’s commitment and would also work with the government to improve the educational sector. 

Hope

Mr Danso said the CSOs were hopeful that the outcome of the National Education Forum would transform the sector as they had before the elections did some research across the country and presented some roadmaps to the manifesto committees of political parties, which were incorporated into the parties’ respective manifestos.

He urged the government to live up to its expectations on issues presented broadly in terms of the new solutions needed to address the persisting challenges and ensure readiness as a country to change things that were happening within the educational sector.

He added that the government must maintain collaboration with all stakeholders, and work together to ensure that issues were addressed comprehensively, stressing that CSOs were always ready to work with the government to drive policy reforms that improved the education sector.