Education ministry to undertake more projects
Parliament last Wednesday approved the GH¢11,195,401,221 budget estimate for the Ministry of Education for 2019.
With the approval, the Ministry of Education will complete stalled building projects in senior high schools (SHS) to improve capacity.
Presenting the report of the Committee on Education, the committee's Chairman, Mr Stevens Siaka, said the ministry would continue the construction of 20 modern technical, vocational and entrepreneur training centres.
He said part of the money would be used to install iBox educational portals in 106 additional schools and to continue with the programme to replace chalkboards with whiteboards.
Besides, Mr Siaka said, the ministry would complete additional 150 kindergartens to provide kindergarten education in primary schools.
The Ministry of Education would also continue to rehabilitate and rebuild 50 collapsing schools.
Mr Siaka said the government would pay the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) registration fees for an estimated 382,675 candidates from public junior high schools (JHS).
He said more schools would be provided with multimedia laboratories as well as Internet connectivity.
Part of the budget will also be used to pay allowances to estimated 54,108 teacher trainees.
Tertiary education
Mr Siaka said the government would commence work on the Bunso Campus of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development.
That would include the construction of an administration block and Schools of Agriculture and Engineering.
The ministry would also commence processes to upgrade the Kumasi Campus of the University of Education, Winneba, into an independent technical and vocational training university.
Free SHS
Mr Siaka explained that funds for the implementation of the free SHS education programme had since 2018 been placed under the Office of Government Machinery.
"Accordingly, the budgetary allocation of GH¢1,682,641,924 for the implementation of the free SHS policy is pencilled out of the total budgetary allocation of GH¢12,878,043,145 by the Ministry of Finance and appropriately captured under the Office of Government Machinery", he said.