Tema, March 16, GNA-The Campaign against Privatization and Commercialization of Education (CAPCOE) has described passing the revised Earmark funds and Capping bill into law by Parliament in December as unacceptable and disastrous.
This was in a press release signed by Mr. Richard Kwashie Kovey, CAPCOE Convenor, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in TTema.
The statement said the Fund and other Earmark funds were further capped from 25 percent to 70 percent which meant that 30 percent of the total GETfund would be allocated to the education sector while 70 percent would go to finance other sectors.
Mr. Kovey added that the GETFund was the sole domestic sustainable source of financing education infrastructure in the country as of now and the act would further worsen the plight of the education system.
He disclosed that monitoring of education infrastructure and dropout rate in recent years revealed that about 1,4700 children drop out of school between primary and Junior High School annually and over 5,000 schools operated under trees and dilapidated structures across the country.
The CAPCOE Convenor added that over 4,000 primary schools have no Junior High Schools making a high percentage of pupils to terminate their education after Primary six.
The statement said several communities were without public schools making it impossible for poor households in rural areas to educate their wards.
He said most of the classes were crowded stressing that in some cases, 120 students occupied a class in urban and Per-urban areas with four students sharing one dual Desk.
Mr Kovey added that from this year only 39 percent was allocated for the education sector with 2.7 billion representing 12.1 percent for Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) adding that this was woefully inadequate to finance the huge classroom and other teaching and learning resource deficit.
Elizabeth Larkwor Baah
