Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Minister of Education
Parliament on Wednesday approved the budget estimates of GH¢11,195,401,221 for the activities of the Ministry of Education in 2019.
GH¢1,682,641,924 has also been allocated for the free Senior High School (SHS) policy introduced by the government.
The 2019 budget allocation for the ministry is 20.9% increase over the 2018 allocation of GH¢9,258,839,827.
Under the ministry’s budget, the government will absorb the registration fees of all Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates for the 2019 BECE from public basic schools at a total cost of GH¢29.9 million. Government also absorbed the registration fees of all 388,265 candidates from public basic schools in 2018.
The budget will also cover teacher training allowances for estimated 54,108 teacher trainees in 2019.
In 2019, the ministry will construct educational infrastructure at all levels of education, procure teaching and learning materials for public basic schools and senior high schools, continuous train all licensed teachers to upgrade their skills and continuation with the pre-tertiary curriculum reforms which would lead to the establishment of pupil standards and common national assessment.
Under the budget, the National Service Scheme has been allocated an amount of GH¢602,869,904 for its operations, out of which GH¢594,1 million will be used for compensation, GH¢5.6 million for goods and services and GH¢3.1 million for capital expenditure.
The ranking member of the Committee of Education, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, appealed the Minister of Education and for that matter government to consider absorbing the registration fees of pupils from private basic schools since their number is very small and would not cost the state much so that every Ghanaian child will fairly benefit from that arrangement.
The ranking member, who is the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Akatsi North, also appealed to the Minister to move the secretariat of the free SHS from the presidency to the ministry so that parliament could proper monitor the implementation of the policy to help tackle corruption.
The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in response, said all sponsored policies or educational scholarships are funded from the seat of the government and that the ministry cannot take up that responsibility.
Other Ministries budget estimates approved by parliament were for the Trade and Industry, which was GH¢306.6 million out of which GH¢95 million has been allocated to the flagship ‘One District, One Factory programme.
The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources also had GH¢525.9 million for its operations in 2019.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr