The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has attributed Ghana’s deteriorating educational standards to the government’s failure to heavily invest in the sector.
He said the lack of investment in the educational sector has stifled various basic schools of the resources needed to provide quality education.
“There are no resources to provide quality education. Once you are constricting or restricting the disbursement of resources to build infrastructure then it means overtime you are denying them of resources,” Mr. Asare lamented.
Quoting figures to support his claim, Mr. Asare said the government had since 2012 drastically reduced its investment in the educational sector.
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“In 2012, Ghana was committing 7.6 percent of its GDP to education. As we speak we are committing 4.6 percent of our GDP. It means we have reduced the percentage allocation of education expenditure to GDP by about 3 percentage points between 2012 and today.”
“The country is investing less in education and at the same time, out of the percentage that goes into education, basic education share has also been shrinking overtime. This is why we are seeing what we are seeing,” he explained on Citi TV’s Point of View.
In 2021, some education campaigners under the umbrella name #EduSpikeGh expressed worry over worsening educational standards.
The organization made up of educational think tanks had said the lack of investments in the public basic school architecture coupled with the proliferation of substandard private schools continues to have a negative toll on teaching and learning outcomes in the country.
The challenge still lingers, as recent reports by Citi News have highlighted the resource constraints confronting various basic schools.
