The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu has asked GETFund to allocate GH¢100million to the St. Paul’s Technical School (SPATS) at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region for the school to produce beds to help deal with the deficit of beds in many senior high schools.
According to Mr Iddrisu, this year [2026], he intends to demonstrate an innovation in solving the problem of the deficit of desks and beds in many schools across the country.
"It is my thinking that the GETFund should allocate GHc100million, let's dedicate it to St Paul's TVET school in Kukurantumi for them to partner two or three schools to produce beds. I have seen them [St Paul's] work with GIZ, we can elevate it to produce chairs" he said while speaking in a radio interview monitored by Graphic Online on Accra based Joy FM on Tuesday morning (October 13, 2026).
Mr Iddrisu said he has already announced that and has written formally to GETFund on that.
He explained that GETFund was already procuring some furniture (desks) for schools and he said he believes beds can be added to it to help remedy what is a general problem across the country with the lack of furniture.
He said other technical schools with the capacity to produce the furniture would also be considered.
Basic school infrastructure
On infrastructure development, Mr Iddrisu said he had asked the Finance Minister to seek an additional US$200 million from the World Bank to support the integrated basic education model, which covers kindergarten to junior high school.
This proposal is separate from the US$300 million approved by the World Bank on June 16, 2026, for the Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance, and Results for Jobs (STARR-J) Project.
Mr Iddrisu said procurement under the STARR-J Project had begun and would follow a competitive process.
The project is expected to fund the construction of 10 new model Category A senior high schools in deprived areas, upgrade about 100 existing schools and rehabilitate additional facilities.
It will also provide infrastructure for special needs schools, including facilities in Sunyani and Hohoe.
The Minister said infrastructure projects required time to complete, estimating that good-quality facilities typically took between 12 and 18 months to build.
