GETFund secures $500m facility to improve educational infrastructure

The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) has secured a $500 million facility to aid the construction of new school structures, renovation and expansion of facilities in existing educational institutions, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has announced.

That, he said, was going to enhance the double-track system and boost enrolment under the government’s flagship free Senior High School (SHS) education programme, aimed at reducing poverty and ensuring an educated and skilled workforce to propel the country’s development agenda.

President Akufo-Addo said this in a keynote address at the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School’s (PRESEC) 80th Anniversary Grand Durbar at Legon, in Accra.

The event was held under the theme: “Powerful past, prosperous present and prominent future”.

President Akufo-Addo told the gathering that contrary to the heightened concerns regarding the swift implementation, the sustainability and the effect of the double-track system on education, the policy would not destroy the educational system “as the professional Jeremiahs would want you to believe”.

Rather, he said, the innovative double-track system apart from providing equal opportunity for every Ghanaian child to gain access to secondary education, would address infrastructural challenges.

“It will reduce class sizes, increase contact hours between teachers and students as well as increase the number of holidays for students, and all this is going to be achieved with existing infrastructure.”

President Akufo-Addo rallied all stakeholders to embrace the system to ensure its success.

He said although there were challenges with the implementation of the free SHS programme, his administration would spare no effort to ensure the success of the policy for a prosperous Ghana.

He inspected and inaugurated some completed projects in the school.

Source: GNA