UK Invests £400 Million in Ghana’s Education Sector

Ghana President Akufo-Addo with UK Prime Minister Theresa May

Accra, Ghana, November 21, 2018//-The United Kingdom (UK) has invested £400 million in the education sector in Ghana over the last 20 years.

This investment in Ghana’s future has supported over 700,000 girls and boys in primary and secondary school over the past 10 years.

Philip Smith, Country Director for Department for International Development (DFID),   a UK government development responsible for administering overseas aid, disclosed this at an ‘Education is GREAT’ event held on Universal Children’s Day yesterday.

According to him, UK is investing in education because it has the power to change lives and to open the door to better employment, more active citizenship and well-informed health decisions that can benefit future generations.

“We are celebrating today – not just Universal Children’s Day – but also the enduring strength and depth of the UK-Ghana partnership on education”, Mr Smith added.

The recent visit of Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall showcased the UK-Ghana education partnership and the huge potential, huge energy and huge drive of Ghana’s youth – from young adults opening new businesses to younger children learning to read.

“Our UK-Ghana partnership is evident at every level of Ghana’s education system – and across a range of British government institutions based here in Accra”.

At the school level, the UK has focused on supporting quality teaching – the child may be the future, but the teacher is the key to unlock that future. Through DFID’s T-TEL programme, we have supported all public colleges of education in Ghana to improve how they train teachers, Mr Smith noted.

He stated: “Now, over 15,000 new teachers a year are going into schools with more practice and better skills to teach inclusively, at the right level and subject.

T-TEL has also supported universities to develop a new ‘world-class’ four-year Bachelor of Education degree curriculum, which – from this year – will make teaching a degree a profession for the first time”.

The British Council has supported teachers already in the classroom to develop, through the UK’s ‘Connecting Classrooms’ programme.

The UK Government has also focused on inclusion in schools. Its Girls-PASS programme has supported over 99,000 disadvantaged girls across Ghana with scholarships which were vital for them to complete secondary school.

DFID’s other girls’ education projects with Varkey and Discovery are using innovative technologies to improve learning outcomes for marginalised girls.

And we are delighted that the Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayokor Botwe  has been appointed as one of the 12-member high-level platform on girls’ education, which is testament to Ghana’s international leadership. We look forward to working together in this vital area.
“Our support to inclusion goes beyond gender. Through the UK’s investments in the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), we have contributed to improving education delivery in the 75 most deprived districts in Ghana.

We have also focused on reaching boys and girls in the poorest, rural communities through DFID’s Complementary Basic Education programme – supporting over 248,000 out-of-school children to learn basic literacy and numeracy skills, and ensuring that they continue to learn and progress through the formal school system”.

“The Ministry of Education is now taking on leadership of CBE, and we welcome the commitment that 1% of the basic education budget will now go to CBE to reach the 450,000 children still out-of-school in Ghana. This is a practical demonstration of “Ghana Beyond Aid”.

At the tertiary level, the UK has supported almost 2,500 Ghanaians to study in UK universities, gain degrees and develop their professional skills over the last 60 years, through the Commonwealth and Chevening Scholarship & Fellowship programmes.

From this year, and to mark its 60th anniversary, the Commonwealth Scholarship is changing so that students from the Commonwealth can study in other countries apart from the UK.

He was quick to add: “We don’t just send students to the UK. We have also supported Ghana’s own university system. 25 years ago, UK’s ODA funding helped establish the University College of Education in Winneba. It became the first institution to pioneer a distance education programme, enabling teachers to upgrade professionally”.

Today it is a major independent teacher training institution which has trained tens of thousands of educators across Ghana.

At the same time, universities which started in the UK are now established in Ghana. University of Nottingham’s PGCE distance learning course is available in Ghana, and the University of Lancaster has a campus in Accra, Mr Smith noted.

African Eye Report

 

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