Ghana to receive $50m to address regional-gender-related inequities in education

The Ministry of Education is to receive $50 million from the Global Partnership for Education, a multinational group that promotes quality education.

The money would help address the issues of regional and gender- related inequities, which has resulted in poor learning outcomes in basic education and would be used by deprived districts to redress the imbalances accounting for the poor performance among pupils of the relatively poor and less affluent in the society.

Mr Mahama Ayariga, Deputy Minister of Education, who revealed this at a press conference in Accra on Friday, said, analysis of the 2011 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results indicate that, there is correlation between inequitable resource allocation to the districts and poor performance.

He said the region with the lowest per child expenditure in education recorded the worst overall results in the BECE.

The Deputy Minister said further analysis reveals that factors such as inequitable teacher distribution across districts, teaching and learning materials and infrastructure are also accountable for the poor performance of pupils.

He said the ministry has directed that teaching and learning materials meant for schools in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West, Brong Ahafo and Northern Volta regions are delivered with dispatch, whilst an additional special budgetary allocation is given to 50 districts in the regions.

According to the minister the additional special budgetary allocation would enable the 50 districts to engage on short term basis qualified personnel to teach in core subjects which often accounts for low performance.

Source: GNA