Executive director of Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Peter Anti, has described the 2024 budget presented by finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta as uninspiring.

According to him, the budget does not contain critical elements which will address challenges within the education sector. He revealed that the finance minister only made comments on “the normal free SHS and other things” which are nothing new from the obvious.

Dr Anti indicated that with the budget presentation being “the last budget”, he expected that there would have been bold statements on how the free SHS is viewed going forward.

“I can just use one word to describe my opinion about that particular budget and it’s that it is uninspiring. Apart from the fact that we’ve seen some increase in capitation grant, I don’t see any other striking initiative in that budget… There’ll be bold statements as to how we finance our basic education, not just increasing capitation grant, but also ensuring that enough infrastructure is provided for that particular sector.
“There’ll be a bold statement as to the way forward in terms of the capping of the GETFund. But it’s unfortunate that I didn’t see any of that thing and for me, for the education sector, the budget is uninspiring.”
Dr Peter Anti

Commenting on the attrition among teachers in the country, Dr Anti stated that he expected the finance minister to address that.

He noted that normally, although government tries to address challenges as and when they come in, this time round, the country is experiencing such happening within the sector and expected a reaction from government.

“I was thinking there would have been at least a line or two to indicate the admittance of that particular challenge and then a possible way forward in addressing it. But as I said, this is a very uninspiring budget, it’s like performing an annual ritual and that it what it was.”
Dr Peter Anti

On his part, editor with the Teacher Education Journal, Larry Agbador, expressed the same sentiment on the 2024 budget presentation. He highlighted that the budget for the education sector, is “lifeless”, especially for the field of teacher education and the colleges of education.

Mr Agbador revealed that the colleges of education for the past seven years have been struggling with infrastructure.

“Government about two years ago decided to award 300-bed hostel facility for all the 46 public colleges of education to address the infrastructure needs that have led to the introduction of the shift system which they don’t want to call double-track in the colleges of education. In fact, those projects were supposed to be completed this year, and as we speak, majority of the colleges if not all have not even seen the faces of the contractors that are supposed to even undertake those projects.”
Larry Agbador

Prioritization of the education sector

Mr Agbador expressed that going into an election year, he was expecting that at least some priority would have been given to colleges in that regard. However, he indicated that it looks like unachievable at the moment.

“We are waiting for God to perform a miracle for the colleges in the one year ahead because it’s really causing a lot of problems in the training of teachers for our country.”
Larry Agbador

Touching on the attrition of teachers in the country, Mr Agbador underscored that he wasn’t actually surprised with the minister of finance not speaking on that area because the issue also comes up with whether government has the financial muscle to cater to their demands.

He noted that government would given the financial clearance to the respective agencies like GES and the rest to recruit these teachers who are “running or those who are in the system already, whether we are providing incentives for them to stay back”.

“So, looking at the myriad of challenges we are already having, I wasn’t even expecting government to even look at that area. going forward, I expect that we are likely to even record more teachers leaving in the coming years, it may be seen as a bad thing but on the other hand it may be seen as taking off the burden of government.”
Larry Agbador