Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare has blamed poor budgetary allocation and imbalance in resourcing the various levels of education for the heightened challenges at the basic education level.
Speaking at the TV3 National Education Dialogue on free SHS, Mr Asare noted that, while it was commendable the level of gains the government had made with the Free Senior High School policy, over-concentration and imbalance in investment has resulted in the abandonment of basic level education.
“If resources are deployed inequitably, you will have a situation where some part of the three segments of the system will be more developed than others. If you look at the pre-tertiary budget of the Ministry of Education, you realise that Basic education is taking about 4 percent and the remaining 96 percent is going to Senior High Schools and TVET. That 4% is the reason you’ll hear capitation grants not being released in two years among others.
“It has been declining from 2016 when we started investing in Senior High Schools which was 19% all the way to right now which is 4%.
“So far as we maintain the Free Senior High School programme in this way, that basic education share of the Ministry of Education budget will continue to decline… it’ll be the reason why we’ll not be seeing adequate textbooks,” the Africa Education Watch director explained.
He called on the government to revise its budgetary allocation to the various levels of education to strengthen the foundation of basic education.
The theme of the National Education Dialogue is “Free SHS in Perspective; Problems Progress and Prospects.
Laud Adu-Asare|3news.com| Ghana