2024 Budget; Abolish the teacher and nursing trainees allowance policy – CSO-Academia Delegation
2024 Budget; Abolish the teacher and nursing trainees allowance policy – CSO-Academia Delegation
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During a meeting with the Minister of Finance to discuss the 2024 budget, a CSO-Academia delegation presented several important submissions.
They highlighted the connection between quality deficits in tertiary education and foundational gaps at the basic level, stemming from inadequate investments in public basic education.
The delegation recommended increasing the budget allocation for the Capitation Grant to cover all public school pupils.
They also emphasized the need for a significant capital expenditure (CAPEX) allocation to basic education to address the out-of-school children issue and construct new basic schools.
Additionally, they called for a continuity plan and increased funding for the GETFund, which had faced liquidity challenges.
The delegation suggested abolishing the teacher and nursing trainees allowance policy in favor of enrolling all tertiary students in the student loan scheme to improve government resource allocation.
Here is a Statement Shared by Kofi- Asare of Eduwatch.
Yesterday, as part of the CSO-Academia delegation that met with the Minister of Finance to discuss the 2024 budget, i made the following submissions:
The quality deficits being reported at the tertiary level are due to foundational gaps at the basic level, arising partly from low investments in public basic education. The Ministry of Finance, Ghana should increase the GHC 38 million budget ceiling for Capitation Grant to GHC 60 million, to cover all abt six million public school pupils in line with the GHC 10 per year that was approved as far back as 2018.
I noted that, the real value of the GHC 10 per head, per year Capitation Grant has reduced from six exercise books in 2018 to only two. Therefore, refusing to allocate the full GHC 10, i.e. about GHC 60 million was atrocious.
In the 2023 main budget, there was no significant CAPEX allocation to basic education. Ghana’s 1.4 million out of school children cannot enroll if we do not invest radically in new basic schools. Ghana needs 2,000 new basic schools in underserved communities like Adenta. To achieve this, a significant CAPEX allocation to basic education in the 2024 main budget is required.
Our tertiary institutions, especially Colleges of Education have become a museum of abandoned projects due to GETFund’s liquidity challenges created by the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry should work with GETFund to develop a continuity plan and increase funding through the realigned kitty from the capping policy.
Finally, i urged the Finance Minister to scrap the wasteful teacher and nursing trainees allowance policy which costs GHC 700 million annually only to produce labour for foreign countries. I advised that, all tertiary students should enroll on the students loan scheme. Government should resource the scheme for enhanced responsiveness.”
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