Accra, February 8, 2018//-SENG-GHANA’s 2018 Education Sector Budget Analysis of the budgetary allocation for the completion of the rehabilitation of 50 school structures and the construction of 200 kindergarten blocks stipulated in the budget in addition to the rehabilitation of 76 dilapidated school structures, is too scanty.
Mrs. Harriet Nuamah Agyemang, the Senior Programmes Officer of SEND-GHANA, who disclosed this in Accra noted: “As we speak, the 80 kindergarten blocks that were begun in 2017, had not been completed not to talk of the 200 proposed in this year’s budget.”
However, she added that the GH¢928m which is 60% of Ghana Education Trust (GET)Fund’s budgetary allocation for 2018 ought to be significantly disbursed in order to address the infrastructural deficit at the basic and senior high school levels.
She insisted that the 6% of the educational sector’s allocation for capital expenditure is inadequate to complete the ongoing projects.
Therefore, SENG-GHANA suggests that, government should still take into consider increasing the allocation in the 2018 supplementary educational budget by earmarking significant proportion of revenues from the extractive industries and the non-renewable sectors.
Mrs. Harriet mentioned that the implementation of the Free SHS Policy has led to increased in enrolment, causing infrastructural and logistical challenges, which is affecting the programme and thus, not being able to run as it should.
“That is why the GETFund must not use the major part of its budget for sponsoring students to study abroad but such funds should be channeled to infrastructure and logistics at the basic and the SHS levels,” she cautioned.
She also observed that “government’s proposal to set up a voluntary fund to finance the Free SHS programme, lacks clarity in terms of how much is being targeted, how that target is going to be met and how the programme could be sustained by the initiative.”
Saying, the voluntary contribution fund, raises uncertainty in terms of how the government is harmonizing some of these scholarships that existed already and how it can feed into the larger policy scheme.
However, Robert Ntiful, a Planning Officer at the Ghana Education Service (GES) has assured that the GH¢5.9 billion budgetary allocation for the 2018/2019 academic year, would be judiciously disbursed across accordingly.
According to Mr. Ntiful, the construction of the 80 kindergarten blocks that begun in 2017, is still ongoing. Adding that, its delay, is as a result of the pre-financing challenges the contractors are faced with.
He revealed that, all construction, rehabilitation and renovation of school works of the Ghana Education Service are done by the various District Assemblies, funded by the GETFund.
Mr. Ntiful explained that, apart from Government’s contribution to the education sector, there are other sources of funding for the sector which ranges from 20% to 30%, and they include donor support (average of 3.5% over the past 6 years), GetFund (average of 8% for the past 6 years), Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) (1% average) and Internally Generated Funds (IGFs) (12% average).
Even though the government spends a lot in the education sector, majority of the money spent in the sector goes into the payment of salaries and wages with about 5% spent on capital expenditure.
It is an undeniable fact that, in some of the years, wages and salaries took almost 100% of the allocation to the education sector with virtually nothing for capital expenditure.
This, he said shows that, government would still have to increase his expenditure in the education sector since the other sources have not brought in much over the years.
By Sammy Adjei, African Eye Report
