Africa Education Watch holds a roundtable discussion on Ghana’s IMF Programme and its implications on public education

Africa Education Watch holds a roundtable discussion on Ghana’s IMF Programme and its implications on public education with stakeholders.

The Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) with support from Oxfam yesterday Thursday, March 23, 2023 held a seminar on Ghana’s IMF Program and its Implications on Public Basic Education at the Noguchi Conference Centre, University of Ghana in Accra.

The session observed a declining share of education resources as a percentage of the national budget under the medium-term budget and expenditure framework (2023-2025) from 12.9% in 2023 to 11.1% in 2025, below minimum international benchmarks of 15%-20%.

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) expressed disappointment about how IMF-occasioned expenditure cuts affected basic education, especially the conduct of sub-standard terminal exams.

The Capitation Grant budget was apparently cut by over 70%, with no disbursement since the academic year commenced in January.

Eduwatch and partners called on govt to use the supplementary budget for 2023 to improve basic education financing, especially fully funding Capitation Grant arrears for 2021-2023, remove the quota/ban on teacher recruitment, uncap GETFund to free GHC 4.6 billion for education infrastructure financing, especially at the basic level, and a participatory review of the MTEF by the Ministry of Finance and CSOs.

Teacher Unions, Student Unions, CSOs, Coalitions and the media were in highly attendance.