Rev. John Ntim Fordjour (in suit), being assisted by Kimberly Rosen (2nd from right), USAID Ghana Mission Director, to launch the project

$60m School accountability project launched

Emmanuel Bonney Sep - 29 - 2023 , 06:54 3 minutes read

A $60-million project to strengthen accountability in public primary schools in the country has been launched in Accra.

The five-year initiative, dubbed "Strengthening Accountability in Ghana's Education System (SAGES) activity", was developed by the Ministry of Education and funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The project would be implemented in 17 districts in the Northern, North East, Upper East and Upper West regions.

The initiative, which would target 1,254 schools and 508,269 pupils, is being implemented by Care International.

The project is aimed at improving primary education service delivery through the institutionalisation of accountability in the primary education system.

It also intends to increase the performance of actors by improving the effectiveness of their interaction and learning outcomes in the beneficiary districts.

The project is expected to end in March, 2028.

Roles

A Deputy Minister of Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, said all stakeholders had key roles to play in the success of the project.

He said the biggest endowment of every country was its human capital, adding that “our major focus is in building a solid foundation at the basic level, which the other sectors would be able to hold on to”.

The deputy minister added that the government was focused on transforming education to achieve better outcomes with the support of stakeholders such as USAID and other development partners.

Service delivery

The USAID Ghana Mission Director, Kimberly Rosen, said out of the $60 million, USAID would provide $10 million directly to the government to support service delivery in the country.

She said her outfit was providing additional support in the form of technical assistance to the Ministry of Education and other agencies.

“Under our previous programme, we worked alongside the ministry to supply 15 million teaching and learning materials, trained 70,000 teachers and achieved improvements in reading fluency through a national reading radio programme and classroom-based phonics lessons.

“The learning activity created a solid foundation for these new initiates,” she said.

Ms Rosen said education was the cornerstone of progress and development in every society, and therefore, it was incumbent upon all to ensure that the country had a strong education system that provided opportunities for its future generation.

Collaboration

The Country Director of Care International, Rose Tchwenko, said the organisation was implementing the project in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.

“Our primary role, apart from management and compliance, is to make sure that we live no child behind,” she said.

Ms Tchwenko expressed the hope that the investment would yield the needed dividends for the benefit of current and future generations.

The Agreement Officer’s Representative (USAID), Paul Napari, said the MoE had developed an accountability framework whose implementation was yet to be operationalised.

The Deputy Chief of Party (SAGES Activity), Mohammed Dawuda, said there was a national dimension to the initiative.

For instance “if we develop a school operating manual in this activity, although this would be used at the zone of influence, all schools in the country would also benefit from it”.

The Chief of Party (SAGES Activity), Care International, Steven Blunden, also said that “what we are doing is supporting the ministry to do what it has chosen to do”.