Allow stakeholders to support Free SHS funding — MOBA panellists

The government should allow stakeholders in the educational space to support the financing of Free Senior High School (SHS) education instead of insisting on exclusively funding it, panellists at the Mfantsipim Old Boys Association (MOBA) Annual Engagement Series have advocated.

They said the government should leverage the goodwill of old students of SHSs, religious organisations and companies to support the Free SHS policy and education in general to ensure a sustainable means of funding education.

One of the panellists and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Law, Dr Kweku Ainuson, however, said such support should be institutionalised with incentives for those willing to help.

“I think the government should put its money where its mouth is. There should be tax incentives for us to contribute to education. There are companies willing to help fund education, but there are no incentives,” he said.

Dr Ainuson said other countries had diversified funding for education, with many educational institutions having endowment funds that had more money through the support from the government.

Such endowment funds, he explained, were mostly supported by old students of such institutions, who were willing to donate because of the existing frameworks for their establishments.

“Fortunately for Ghana, affinity to schools is more at the SHS level, with old students willing to go all out to support their schools. Unfortunately, organising alumni is done at the school level. There are no rules and no encouragement or support from the government,” he added.

MOBA engagement series

The MOBA Annual Engagement Series was instituted in 2016 as part of the 140th anniversary celebrations of Mfantsipim.

It aims at contributing positively to discussions of pertinent issues of national interest, and also provides ways of addressing such issues.

This year’s engagement which focused on education was on the theme: “148 Years of Advancing Educational Excellence in Ghana: The Future”.

It was moderated by international consultant and renowned information technology (IT) expert, Sulemana Abubakar, who is an old student of the school, while the panellists, who are also old boys of the school were Dr Ainuson, a former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Standard Chartered Bank for Southern Africa; Kweku Bedu-Addo, a former Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast; Dr Kenneth Shelton Aikins; and a Human Resource professional, Jonas Manu-Essamoah.

Challenges

Mr Bedu-Addo said in spite of the conscious efforts to increase universal access to education, many low-income earners were having challenges to adequately participate in education.

For instance, he said, educational services had become commercialised, with people now being virtually forced to pay for private tuition and vacation classes in order for their wards to have proper education.

“This has become a mainstream practice in Ghana and is very prevalent, with something that should have become the exception now the norm. This arrangement favours mostly urban and middle-class households, and disproportionately discriminates against rural households,” he said.

Another challenge, Mr Bedu-Addo said, was the fact that allocation of resources for education mostly went into the payment of wages and salaries at the expense of improvement in educational facilities and tools.

Solutions

On how to address challenges in education, Mr Bedu-Addo said policymakers and the entire country must see education as a social justice that ought to be made available to everyone, irrespective of one’s social status.

“We must, therefore, reorganise public spending to release funds for education. We must also move away from universal unconditional public funding to households and institutions in the country,” he added.

“It is time to identify individuals who are above the water lines and can pay for services, and those who really need public help. To do that, we need data infrastructure that can deliver reasonable and verifiable data that can identify households, individuals and organisations before public funds are allocated to them,” Mr Bedu-Addo added.

Again, he said, it was time for the country to tackle education and other pressing issues seriously, adding that “all the solutions are within our reach; we just have to apply ourselves and be committed to see it through devoid of politics and theatre.”

For Dr Aikins, the country must develop curricula and educational plans that would help remove barriers to the country’s development.

With regard to Mr Manu-Essamoah, the country’s educational structure must be developed in a manner that helps to shape students to be able to provide solutions to the challenges currently facing the world.

Writer’s email: emma.hawkson@graphic.com.gh