'Secondary level enrolment increased by 43 per cent'

The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta has said that enrolment at the secondary level has increased by 43 per cent between 2016 and 2018.

Delivering the 2020 Budget Statement in Parliament on Wednesday, the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta said at the end of the 2018/2019 academic year, total beneficiaries for the first two cohorts was 794,899 students.

“The number of beneficiaries is projected to reach 1,264,000 with the addition of the third cohort. This would be the highest ever number of students concurrently enrolled in the public secondary education system in Ghana,” he added.

According to the Minister, “government will continue to invest in the education sector by providing adequate infrastructure improving appropriate regulatory systems and excessively building capacity of teachers across the country and enhance quality human capacity development”

“We will fast forward the construction for about 96 feet structures including classroom blocks, dormitories and auxiliary facilities in secondary schools across the country to ease congestion in our schools,” he added.

Mr Ken Ofori Atta also said government had in place plans to expand and retool the country's technical institutions.

“Our other focus is on the expansion and upgrading of public tertiary institutions to absorb the high growth in student numbers. True to our commitment to prioritising technical education, this week, work has begun on the most comprehensive expansion and retooling exercise ever undertaken in the county’s history involving technical institutions.

"We will continue our 16th flagship programs in other to transform the lives of Ghanaians. Mr Speaker, we are confident that as a result of the academic intervention programs we have rolled up, the success rate will be high to prove the skeptics wrong, the graduates will be ready to enter our tertiary institutions as well as join other internship programs to enable them to start their own businesses," he added.