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President Nana Akufo-Addo said his government is expanding access to education for all schoolchildren in Ghana, as an educated workforce will help realize the vision of a progressive and prosperous Ghana.
Speaking at the World Education Summit, co-hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, in London on Thursday, President Akufo-Addo noted that the African countries goal is to stop being mere producers and exporters. from raw materials to value-added economies.
This, the president said, will not be possible if Africa does not have an educated workforce.
“So this requires an investment that we must make to ensure that not only so many, but also all of our children have the opportunity to go to school from kindergarten, through primary, secondary and higher education.” , did he declare. noted.
Towards realizing this, President Akufo-Addo told the summit that Ghana is on track to ensure access to education for all schoolchildren, as evidenced by the allocation of 23% of the national budget. to education, adding that “it is one of the highest on the continent, and we intend to increase it even more.
With the free high school policy that has enabled some 400,000 additional children to access secondary education in Ghana, the president acknowledged that infrastructure problems and the challenges of inadequate classrooms were emerging. resolved.
“So in Ghana we have made the decision to go ahead on a large scale now that we have expanded public education at secondary level to everyone, to try to replicate it at the higher level as well,” he said. he declared. noted.
President Akufo-Addo continued, “Until recently, if you wanted to get a student loan in Ghana, you had to find a guarantor, someone who would come and say, we took away the guarantor requirement.
“If you have the Ghana National Card, you can now go on the basis of which you get the loan, which also means a significant expansion of education at the tertiary level. “
Describing these steps as “absolutely critical for our future”, the president noted that “if we don’t do this we will not be able to achieve our fundamental goal, which is a structural transformation of our economies … Lives and livelihoods are both the keys to the future for us and we hope to continue to do so ”.
Summit Outcomes
At the end of the Summit, governments and international businesses pledged to donate $ 4 billion to the Global Partnership for Education, which provides equitable access to public education in 90 countries and territories representing 80 % of out-of-school children.
The summit underscored the importance of equitable access to education amid warnings that Covid-19 has exacerbated already underfunded public education programs in economically less developed countries.
Experts alerted the organization that those who have been forced out of school due to the pandemic are unlikely to return.
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