World Bank Supports Free SHS

Company News of Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Source: asempanews.com

2019-03-26

President Akufo-Addo with Hafez Ghanem, Vice President for Africa Region (2nd from left), Ken Ofori (right) and Henry GR Kerali (left), Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone .

The Akufo-Addo administration has earned praise from the World Bank for implementing Free High School High School (SHS) policy

World Bank Vice President Hafez Ghanem said the government's ability to implement the policy is indicative of its determination to bring the country to prosperity.

The Vice President of the World Bank made the remarks when yesterday he paid a courtesy call on President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House in Accra.

He said: "We strongly support your decision to ensure that all education up to secondary education is free; I think this is extremely important and we would like to help as much as possible. "

He is in the country on a three-day mission devoted to discussing macroeconomic, fiscal and monetary policies, and highlighting investment opportunities in education and the growing digital economy.

His visit comes at a time when Ghana is finalizing its exit plan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program, with an evaluation team conducting a review of its viability.

The country has been listed in IMF programs no less than 16 times.

If Ghana approves the combined seventh and eighth extended credit facilities by the end of March, the last tranche of funds totaling approximately $ 188 million would be released, bringing the total disbursements under the program to approximately 664 million. , 20 million SDRs ($ 920.58 million).

The deputy director of the World Bank added: "Everything we do to keep children, boys and girls, in school until the end of high school is very important and we will be delighted and help as much. that we can.

For him, the trend in Africa that young girls, who must be in school, give birth at the expense of their education, has demographic and development implications.

President Akufo-Addo pledged to avoid complacency and referred to his government's plans to redefine basic education in Ghana by making basic and secondary education compulsory.

According to him, this would become a powerful legal weapon to ensure that all children, especially girls of school age, stay in school until they are at school. less completed high school.

While acknowledging that the country's constitution provided for basic education to be provided from kindergarten to lower secondary education, he said the new law would take him to upper secondary school.

President Akufo-Addo thanked the World Bank and other institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for being "proactive" in the cause of Ghana.

He said Ghana had benefited from at least $ 11 billion from the bank and that he considered the country was at a crossroads in its development.

"The fragile economy of raw material production for a century can not continue, we must find a way to modernize the economy to produce locally so that Ghana can export finished products in order to attract high value in trade international organizations and to provide human capital. from Ghana with the best tools such as the capacity of information communication technology and the shaping of the education system to allow most, if not all young people, to access the information system. education, "he added.