The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) is commending CSOs in education for their efforts in ensuring that children of the country have access to quality education.
General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Tanko Musah, says the teachers are in support of the CSOs’ petition to IMF on expenditure cuts in Ghana’s basic education sector.
Mr Musah stated: “We need to praise them as they have done really well because the IMF is an international body and when we say UN they are all part in helping countries to progress and so when we say benchmarks, that global partnership for education has put down for the monies that need to be put in when preparing budget is 15% into the annual budget and when it comes to GDP it needs to be 4% so what we are doing is below that benchmark.”
The GNAT General secretary opined that, “the challenge is that, if you would remember in 2015, we promised that by 2030 we would complete what we call Sustainable Development Goal, particularly goal four and the basis of the goal four is that leave no one behind.
“As I speak to you we have done about eight years down the line since we said nobody should be left behind and what we should ask ourselves is that if God permits and the seven years ahead of us comes to pass we can say no one has been left behind.”
Narrating the challenges facing the education sector, Thomas Musah said: “In 2015 when we were making that pledge we all had hopes that no one would be left behind and where we have reached we can say no one has been left behind. We don’t need anyone to tell us people have been left behind and when we cast our minds back you would know others have been left behind and we can’t leave them behind as they are all citizens.
“Another thing is that in this country the annual population growth is about 2.3%. what we need to ask ourselves is that those who would be turning four years, can we say all those children are in school? If they are not then we should know people are behind.
“So what the CSOs have put together is for the betterment of the country. I always say that children are people who cannot hold press conferences and can’t also demonstrate, if we struggle a lot what would happen is they would be involved in child labour but we the elderly when things bother us we sit on radio or hold pressers, demonstrations demanding our rights but how can the children demand for theirs?”
Civil Society Organisations working to promote access to quality basic education and social protection in Ghana have submitted a petition to the Board of the IMF.
The petition calls on the IMF Board to remove expenditure cuts in Ghana’s basic education sector, arising from Ghana’s bid to meet conditionalities for its Extended Credit Facility application.
According to the petition sent, “economically unrealistic allocations to the Ghana School Feeding Programme in the 2023 budget, coupled with projected freeze/cuts in the Programme’s expenditure allocation for 2024-2025 threaten to reduce the number of beneficiaries of the one hot meal a day intervention for 3.5 million public basic school children by up to 25 per cent.”