Mr. Kofi Asare, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (EduWatch), is urging government to announce a 100% increase in the Capitation Grant for basic schools across the country ahead of the presentation of the Mid-Year Review of the Budget Statement and Supplementary Estimates for the 2023 Financial Year to Parliament.
This, he argues, will help to offset the obstacles associated with the country’s access to universal education.
Mr. Asare made the announcement on Thursday at an Economic Forum in Accra.
“We anticipate hearing a 100% increase in the capitation grant from ten to twenty,” he stated. “We also want an assurance from the Finance Minister that the token disbursement regime will end, and that there will be a clear disbursement roadmap to assure stakeholders that the grant will not be in arrears.”
“We’d also like to hear from the Ministry of Finance about plans to pay the arrears that have accumulated over time.” Some principals have taken out loans to run schools, and they are now owing money to their communities. “We don’t want to foster that,” he added.
Moreover, the Executive Director of EduWatch said they expected the government to announce a supplementary budget to support the provision of desks.
“One of the biggest challenges in the education sector is the issue of desks. Over two million children have been struggling with the issue of desks. We’ve seen some efforts by some stakeholders, district assemblies, and others to support, but the most recent data we have from the Ministry of Education suggests that we need one million desks. So we want to see some real commitment made in the supplementary budget to support the limited amount of funding that was made available for the procurement of desks in the GETFund Formula,” he added.
