World Bank Global Education Director pays courtesy call on Education Minister
Global Education Director of the World Bank, Dr Jaime Saavedra has paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Adutwum.
Making the courtesy call on the Minister on Thursday, February 9, 2023, Dr Saavedra expressed the commitment of the World Bank to continue supporting the Education Ministry in the creation and improvement of quality and equity education in the country.
“The World Bank will continue to support the good work the Ministry is doing in terms of improving quality and education reach to students.
“Ghana still faces challenges in improving quality of education and the World Bank is in the business of improving quality and higher education, and the Bank places enormous importance on increasing access to quality education not only in Ghana, but also in other developing countries,” he remarked.
Touching on the construction of STEM schools in some parts of the country, Dr Saavedra commended the Minister asserting STEM schools in the country will serve as a major boost to Ghana’s efforts towards improving quality education.
“This is gigantic progress being made to improve the quality of education in the country, for the world bank its an honour to be able to support the national efforts through finance and technical assistance,” he added.
On his part, the Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Adutwum, thanked the World Bank for its long-standing support and commitment towards improving education in the country.
The Minister singled-out the World Bank-supported Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP) as one initiative helping to improve enrolment and quality of education particularly at the basic level.
Speaking further, the Minister called on the World Bank to provide more funding for the construction of STEM schools across the country.
The Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP) is a five-year project with the objective to improve the quality of education in low-performing basic education schools and strengthen education sector equity and accountability in Ghana.
The project targets the 10,000 lowest-performing Basic Schools (Kindergarten, Primary and Junior High Schools) and all special schools with direct interventions.
The total project amount for GALOP is $218.7 million. It is jointly funded by the World Bank, Department for International Development (DFID) and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
In total, about 2,328,750 pupils and 76,000 teachers from the targeted basic schools would directly benefit from the various interventions under the project.
To achieve the project’s objective, the school system will benefit from the following:
- Enhanced capacity of teachers to effectively discharge their duties through continuous professional development.
- Enhanced capacity of heads of schools to effectively manage schools for improved outcomes.
- Enhanced capacity of Circuit Supervisors to strengthen school inspections and supervision.
- Enhanced capacity of District Education Directorates through training in education management and the provision of District Grants.
- Promotion of the equitable deployment of trained teachers and incentivisation of teachers’ deployment to rural areas.
- Strengthening of School Management Committees (SMCs) to promote school-community engagement.
- Provision of Learning Grants in addition to the Capitation Grants.
- Development and distribution of Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs) on the national curriculum.
- Supply of quality TLMs to special schools.
