The Coordinator of the Northern Network for Education Development (NNED), Mr Garskin Dassah, made the observation at a day’s media training workshop organized in Bolgatanga for Media Practitioners on ‘Promoting Transparency and Accountability in Education (PTAE)’ project being implemented by NNED, the Link Community Development in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service.

The project launched in 2016 is being implemented in 25 districts in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions and sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).It is to empower Civil Society Organizations and citizens to demand transparency and accountability from education managers at school, district, regional and national levels.

It was to fine tune measures to help improve the country’s educational system with the overall aim of improving on reading and learning at the basic school levels.In the Upper East Region five districts namely the Kassena-Nankana West, Bawku West, Builsa North, Talensi and the Nabdam are benefiting from the programme. 

Mr Dassah called on media houses in the  project operational areas to devote more of their media space by  throwing light on the challenges confronting education particularly in areas such as poor educational infrastructure, teacher absenteeism,  lack of furniture  and poor school management in general.Mr Dassah said NNED aims at ensuring all children of school-going age have access to quality education in the aforementioned regions.

According to him, NNED undertakes evidence based advocacy to achieve its aim, and said it was done through partnerships and harnessing skills and experience from its members.The Coordinator said his outfit had achieved results in contributing to pursue the need for a base grant in the capitation grant as well as mobilized inputs from CSOs/NGOs for the 2015 draft Education Bill.

The Project Manager of Link Community, Mr Joachim Faara, said involving the media in the discussions to promote quality education in the regions was in the right direction, because the media represented the voiceless people in the community.Mr Faara pointed out that despite the numerous educational interventions Ghana had received from development partners including the Global Partnership for Education Grant (GPEG) and the promotion of the free compulsory universal primary education by the government, low learning outcomes among pupils amidst the poor performance of pupils in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) continued to occur.

He said it was to tackle these education related problems that NNED in collaboration with the Link Community Development, the Ghana Education Service and the Media sought to form stronger collaboration to advocate for accessible and inclusive quality education for every child in the Northern, Upper East and West Regions of Ghana.