Education Minister refutes allegation of GH¢1.2m scandal
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum the Minister of Education has debunked allegation of GH¢1.2 million scandal from the World Bank for the training of teachers in digital literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minister said the money was currently in the account of the Ministry and that the World Bank had not written to the Ghana Education Service or any Agency under the Ministry to confirm the achievement of results, as purported in the media space.
Speaking at a press briefing in Accra on Thursday on the issue, he said the Ministry’s attention had been drawn to a publication in the media in which the publishers wrongly interpreted the facts regarding the training of teachers in Digital Literacy under the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP).
Giving background to the project, the Minister said the GALOP used Results Based Financing (RBF) instrument, where project funds were disbursed contingent on the achievement of pre-agreed results and independent verification of results.
In 2020, the Ministry secured additional $15 million as COVID-19 Global Partnerships for Education Accelerated Funding to respond to disruptions to education due to COVID-19.
Under the component, he said one Performance Based Condition (PBC) against which disbursement was tied to was teachers trained in digital literacy.
The Ministry, he stated was expected to train 40,000 teachers in digital literacy to trigger disbursement of $1.2 million.
On action taken, the Minister said in collaboration with Ghana Education Service (GES), KA Technologies had been engaged to supply laptops to, and train teachers in digital literacy.
To ensure efficiency in the utilization of sector resources, the Ministry leveraged the teacher training platform developed by KA Technologies (https://kanton.katechnologiesgh.com) and National Teaching Council (NTC) platforms http://elearning.ntc.gov.gh ) for the provision of digital literacy training.
Dr Adutwum stated that based on evidence from the Kanton platform, a total of 41,860 teachers had registered as participating in digital literacy training on the KA technologies platform as of November 30, 2021.
“Out of this total, 40,042 had been through at least a course on digital literacy”, he said.
The Minister stated that an independent verification of the Ministry’s Report on achievement was done by the Education Sector Development Partners as the requirement of the project.
The Development Partners’ Group, he said was taken through a presentation on the teacher training platform, courses mounted, teachers registered and the courses taken.
“Following these engagements, the Education Sector Development Partners in a letter dated March 25, 2022 officially communicated their verification and confirmation of achievement of PBC 7.2B.
“Among others, the Group noted that documentation provided by the Ministry to the Chair of the Development Partners Group shows that, as of November 30, 2021, a total of 41,860 teachers from 685 schools across the country have registered on the platform and 40,042 have completed at least of five digital literacy courses,” he stated.
He said, satisfied with the results, the World Bank transferred $1.2 million to the Ministry after their internal clearance of the PBC.
The funds, he said would be programmed for GALOP implementation activities in the next budget cycle as per project implementation arrangements.
He said KA Technologies platforms had 148,510 signed up uses and that 43,988 teachers had been trained on the NTC platform as of May 26, 2022.
Source: GNA