School for Life reacts to 2023 budget for basic education

School for Life, a Non-Governmental Organisation on human rights and education has stated that the 2023 budget has not specified how the huge infrastructure gap at the basic educational level will be plugged.

“Excluding the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), the total allocation to the MoE for 2023 is GH¢22.9 billion. Of this amount, GH¢2.7 billion, which represents about 12 per cent of MoE allocation, is devoted to Capital Expenditure (CAPEX). It is the CAPEX amount that will be used to finance educational infrastructure, including basic education infrastructure”.

A statement signed by Amadu Zulyaden, Policy Influencing and Advocacy Specialist of the NGO and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra said the concern was that GH¢1.6 billion of the CAPEX allocations, constituting 59 per cent of CAPEX, was expected to come from development partners.

“Given the current unfriendly global economic climate, and concerns about Ghana’s creditworthiness, this amount may not be realised, putting capital expenditure in the educational sector at significant risk.

The statement said the freeze on employment was a major concern. “The questions that arise are: (a) Will the recruitment of new teachers into the basic education sector be affected by this freeze, what constitutes ‘very critical cases’? If history is something to go by, then question (a) will be answered in the affirmative”.

It said the most recent IMF programme led to a freeze in employment in the education sector, with recruitment limited to replacement of retired and deceased employees and the ambiguity in the caveat ‘very critical cases’ lent itself to discretion and abuse.

“Exemptions to the employment freeze must be properly spelt out to enhance transparency and accountability. Suppose the employment freeze is carried through to the latter in the basic education sector. In that case, it will further worsen the pupil-teacher ratio in public schools and heighten inequities in access to quality basic education”.
The statement said over the years, allocation to GETFund had become a significant source of infrastructure finance for the education sector, including basic education.

“In the 2023 budget, an amount of GH¢1.87 billion is allocated to GETFund even though the total GETFund levy accruals is GH¢4.64 billion. This means that only about 40 per cent of GETFund levy expected accrual is being allocated for GETFund activities which will further weaken GET Fund’s ability to fund infrastructure projects and contribute to the increasing number of abandoned GETFund projects at various levels of education.

“The fact that 60 per cent of GETFund accruals go elsewhere speaks to the adverse effects of the capping of funds by the Government. The infrastructure gap at the basic level is enormous and will require a huge financial injection to fill.

“Over 5,400 Basic Schools are held under trees; about 4,000 public primary schools lack Junior High Schools contributing to high drop-out rates1. The total uncapping of GETFund revenues will release funds for investment across the education value chain from basic to tertiary and reduce the increasing incidence of abandoned projects in the educational sector”.

The statement said in the 2023 budget, a total of GH¢969 million was allocated to the School Feeding Programme, representing a nominal increase of about 10 per cent over the 2022 allocation of GH¢881 million. Despite the increase, Government will be unable to match the increase in feeding grant per pupil per school-going day from 97Gp to GH¢3 requested by SFP caterers. Given that inflation is currently above 40 per cent, in real terms, the allocation to SFP in 2023 has declined.

“If the inflationary pressures continue to mount in 2023, and if no further measures are taken to increase feeding grant amounts in line with caterer demands, we might experience agitations from SFP caterers as happened in 2022. To forestall this, the Government should start engaging caterers to agree on the way forward while seeking additional funding to plug the funding gap.

The statement called on the government consider a total uncapping of GETFund revenues to release funds for investment at all levels of education, especially primary education, to address the issue of schools under trees and reduce the incidence of abandoned projects in the educational sector.

“Parliament must ensure fair and equitable distribution of GETFund receivables, favouring infrastructure investments in basic education, before approving the GETFund distribution formula in the first quarter of 2023 and the Government must clarify the ‘very critical cases’ in which employment will be allowed to ensure policy clarity and transparency, and forestall abuse of the policy”.

It said the recruitment of new teachers in underserved basic schools should be allowed in 2023 to improve quality in deprived and rural schools.

The statement also called on the government to embark on Mobile Library Van Outreaches in 1,200 Basic Schools across the country to promote reading culture and access to reading materials, inspect and license 24,500 private schools at the pre-tertiary level and conduct school performance inspections in 2,381 public and private Basic Schools.

Source: newsghana.com.gh