The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has been invited to be part of a high-level advisory group for Mission 4.7, a new global initiative to put into practice the vision articulated by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on education.

Mission 4.7 is a partnership among the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Ban Ki-Moon Centre for Global Citizen and the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

This is the second Ghanaian minister to have been invited to the advisory group.

Dr Adutwum is expected to deliver a virtual keynote address today during one of the group's meetings.

Invitation

This was contained in an invitation letter dated June 23, 2021 and signed by Jeffrey D. Sachs, the President of the United Nations SDSN, and Stephanie Giannini, the Assistant Secretary-General, UNESCO, on behalf of Audrey Azoulay, the Patron of Mission 4.7 and Director-General of UNESCO.

It is expected that Dr Adutwum, who is a career educationist with considerable experience, through this appointment will bring to bear his remarkable leadership in global education as it will be invaluable to the rest of the world.

The Advisory Group, on the other hand, will be co-Chaired by Ms Giannini; the Chairman of the Sunway Group, Mr Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah; the Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and representative of Pope Francis, Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo; and Prof. Sachs.

Response

In his response letter to the agency dated and signed on July 9, 2021, Dr Adutwum reaffirmed his readiness to take part in the project to implement the bold vision-articulated initiative.

He said it was prudent for all to bring their expertise to bear to help generate ideas and initiatives that would support the development of education in every part of the world.

The Education Minister was upbeat that the assemblage of such a “powerful team of education experts” would ensure the implementation of ideas and visions which could bring great change to the world through the transformation of education.

Dr Adutwum assured the world of his preparedness to spend quality time in planning, discussion and implementation of any good vision for the good of the world.

SDG Four

The UN's SDG four aims to ensure inclusive education and promote lifetime learning opportunities for all.

Several targets under SDG four are concerned with access to various levels of education, especially for vulnerable populations.

Timely data on school locations is essential for the assessment of students’ needs, planning for resources allocation, access to other services such as health facilities and policy planning that can improve the quality of education for students.

To support the call to action, the UN SDSN's SDG is providing an accessible product using open-source data to share national population counts within various travel distances and time from recorded educational facilities.

The goal is to engage local students, communities and other actors in the ongoing development of this dataset and learn how to work with education ministers and statistical offices to complement official data sources.

Background

Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, who is also the Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe in the Ashanti Region, is an educationist who has spent all his life teaching, studying and managing educational institutions at different levels and in different parts of the world.

His appointment to the world-class platform is, therefore, not a surprise to most Ghanaians, especially considering his performance in the past five years as Deputy Education Minister and his recent elevation to the substantive position of Minister of Education.

He has been very instrumental since the beginning of the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government in rolling out the novel Free Senior High School (FSHS) initiative, the double-track admission system, among others.

All these, coupled with others, were part of the reasons why the President re-assigned him to be the substantive position of Minister of Education.