By Albert Futukpor, GNA
Sagnarigu (N/R), March 30, GNA – School for Life, an NGO, has embarked on a reactivation of Municipal/District Education Oversight Committees (M/DEOCs) across all its eight Zones of Influence (ZoI) as part of its implementation of the USAID/Ghana Strengthening Accountability in Ghana’s Educational System-Systems Strengthening Activity.
The M/DEOCs, which are the bodies at the municipal and district levels charged with the mandate of ensuring effective education delivery, face resource and capacity challenges and, therefore, are unable to perform their mandate towards quality education delivery, hence the efforts to reactivate them.
Madam Wedad Sayibu, Director, School for Life, speaking at a day’s meeting with members of the Sagnarigu MEOC at Sagnarigu in the Northern Region, said reactivating the M/DEOCs would ensure that avenues for catalysing education issues would be enhanced, and appropriate steps taken to increase performance across primary schools in the USAID/Ghana SAGES Systems Strengthening Activity’s Zones of Influence.
The USAID/Ghana SAGES Systems Strengthening Activity seeks to strengthen existing accountability structures that will contribute towards improving learning gains in its Zones of Influence, which include Sagnarigu, Nanton, Mion, Yendi, Gushegu, and Karaga Districts in the Northern Region, and East Mamprusi and Mamprugu-Moaduri Districts in the North -East Region.
The meeting was to deliberate on how School for Life, as part of the USAID/Ghana SAGES Systems Strengthening Activity, could support the Sagnarigu MEOC to effectively perform its mandated functions to ensure quality education, especially at the primary level in the area.
During the meeting, it was realised that due to lack of resources and capacity challenges on the parts of members, the Sagnarigu MEOC rarely met, and did not embark on regular monitoring of schools, a situation, which was impacting negatively on quality education delivery in the area.
Madam Sayibu said, “In most districts M/DEOCs only exist in name. They are not functioning. They rarely meet and do not embark on monitoring visits to schools. So, we are working with M/DEOCs to ensure that they become functional and perform oversight responsibility on the implementation process of the USAID/Ghana SAGES Systems Strengthening Activity.
She emphasised that, “We are looking at how we can work together to ensure that they (M/DEOCs) meet regularly as they are expected to, they embark on school monitoring as they are expected to do, they are able to respond to issues that are coming up, how can we help them to enable them to generate internal revenue to address their resource constraints to support their work.”
As part of the meeting, members of the Sagnarigu MEOC committed to draw up an action plan that would include when and how frequently they would be meeting, critical activities they would be embarking on as well as highlighting their capacity needs.
Madam Sayibu expressed the USAID/Ghana SAGES Systems Strengthening Activity’s commitment to support the Sagnarigu MEOC in the performance of its mandate saying, “We are looking forward to receiving the action plan so that we can work with you to support its implementation.”
Mr Mohammed Yakubu Ahmed, Sagnarigu Municipal Chief Executive, who is also Chairman of Sagnarigu MEOC, expressed delight that partners had identified the challenges and had come to support the Assembly to address them.
He said despite the challenges, the Assembly was doing its best to provide classroom blocks and furniture for some schools in some communities in the area.
GNA