Feature by Kodjo Adams
Accra, April 4, GNA – No country can develop without effective quality education. This is critical because education plays an important role in developing the human development capital for socio-economic development.
Education in Ghana and in Africa is be-devilled with challenges like access, quality, and infrastructure, among others, which need urgent attention to salvage the situation.
This is important to make education fit for purpose and meet the 21st-century learning competencies.
STATISTICS
Research revealed that 617 million children worldwide are not meeting basic proficiency levels in reading and mathematics.
In Ghana, many children attend low-fee private schools with inadequate resources and infrastructure.
ADDRESSING THE SITUATION
Opportunity International EduFinance, through its innovative financial solutions and capacity-building initiatives, has helped in addressing the challenges to improve quality education.
The programme partners with financial institutions to provide affordable loans to schools and parents to improve infrastructure, educational provisions, and health and safety enhancements.
It also provides school fee loans to help parents manage the cost of education, ensuring children stay in school year-round.
The EduQuality Programme offers a three-year school development plan, providing school leaders and teachers with professional development and resources to improve education quality.
The Pathways to Excellence guide of the programme has helped school leaders to self-diagnose and improve their school’s quality across 18 domains, including school culture, management, and teaching practices.
IMPACT OF THE PROGRAMME
The programme since its inception has yielded positive outcomes, of which 16.3 million children have gained access to quality education.
Also, 203 financial institutions have partnered with Opportunity International to support educational financing.
Statistics show that 83 per cent of schools in the programme have reported improved education quality.
50 per cent of schools in the EduQuality programme have shown significant improvements in self-assessed school quality.
Also, school leaders and teachers in the EduQuality programme have benefitted from regular professional development, fostering a collaborative and supportive learning environment.
FIELD TOUR TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS UNDER THE PROGRAMME
The Ghana News Agency and other media houses toured the private basic schools under the Opportunity International EduFinance programme in Kasoa and interacted with school owners, teachers and parents on their collaboration with the programme.
The schools include Springboard Education Centre, Supreme Care Academy, Way of Peace Montessori Academy, and Bright Future School.
Madam Grace Frimpoma Boahin, the Headmistress of Springboard Education Centre, said the school was established in August 2014 to provide opportunities for children in the area to have access to quality education.
To encourage parents to send their wards to school, she said the management of the school charges nine cedis daily for fees, including feeding.
Madam.Boahin said some of the challenges they faced include infrastructure and absenteeism, especially when it rains.
She said the school is planning to collaborate with Opportunity International to access their funding programme to develop the school structure to be fit for purpose.
Madam Boahin said since the establishment of the school, it sat for the BECE twice and had the least grade of 18 and the highest as 9.
Mr Ransford Gyekye, the proprietor of Supreme Care Academy, said the school was established in 2009 with four students and now had a total population of 462 students.
He said the idea to put up the school was that most of the children were at home because there were no schools in the area, and the wife decided to move from house to house to encourage parents to send their children to school.
Mr Gyekye said the school came 4th out of the 200 schools that wrote the BECE in 2018, adding that most of their graduates were in tertiary education, while others worked in other institutions, including the hospitals.
He mentioned funding as one of the challenges facing the school, especially with the interest rate. He urged the government to do something about the interest rate to enable them to access loans to expand the school.
Mr Gyekye said the school placement system had a 30 per cent quota for public schools, while the 70 per cent quota was shared among the public and private schools.
The system, he said, had led to most parents withdrawing their wards when they reached form two and enrolling them in public schools.
He appealed to the government to take a second look at the issue and provide equal opportunity for private schools.
Mr Gyekye said the school had benefitted from a loan scheme from Opportunity International to expand the school’s infrastructure and appealed for more time for the repayment.
He commended Opportunity International for the capacity-building programme for the schools, saying the training had enabled him to brand the school and trained his teachers to deliver quality education.
Other schools that benefit from the programme expressed satisfaction with the collaboration with Opportunity International in improving private education in the country.
Most of the heads of school have called for collaboration between the government and the private schools to extend the free basic school to private schools.
Ms Precious Asiamah, Administrator of Cute Stars Childcare, said she had benefitted from the training programme in leadership skills, branding and inclusive education.
She described the programme as beneficial and effective, adding that it had a positive change on how to use different approaches in teaching the children.
PARENTS PERSPECTIVES
Mr Thomas Ayueagandi, the Parent Teacher Association Chairman, Bright Future School, called on the authorities to construct a bridge to connect to the school.
He said the place looks very bad anytime it rains, and sometimes the children are not able to come to school.
A parent commended the school for their performance, saying she had seen changes in her ward’s academic improvement.
OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL SAVINGS AND LOANS INTERVENTIONS
Mr Stephen Yankey, Manager, EduFinance, Opportunity International Savings and Loans, said in the last 20 years, they have been able to provide over Ghc100 million in funding to schools.
He said by the close of 2024, the company had a portfolio standing to be GH₵16.2 million and pledged to expand their portfolio to various private schools.
Mr Yankey said some schools do not have National Schools Inspectorate Authority certificates, which makes it difficult for such schools to access loans from them.
He said their outfit had sensitised the schools about the need to register their schools with the regulatory body and how to keep proper bookkeeping to enable them to access their loans.
Mr Yankey said it was important to create the environment for private schools to have access to funding and provide quality education to the children.
The initiative, he stressed, would solve the problem of proximity, saying if there were only quality schools in the urban areas, the rural areas children would not have quality education.
GNA
CA/