Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education, has urged world leaders to consider adopting prudent measures to improve access and quality of education in their countries.
He said the current situation across the world, called for all nations to make access to education for all a topmost priority to improve socio-economic development.
Dr Adutwum was delivering a keynote address via zoom at the official opening of a meeting of a UN High-Level Advisory Group for Mission 4.7, a new global initiative to put into practice the bold vision articulated by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) target 4.7 on education.
The meeting brought together education experts from across the globe to share ideas on how best to support the development of global education.
The Minister described the ongoing transformation of the nation’s education as very crucial to catch up with the rest of the world.
He explained that after undertaking several reforms as a nation, there was the need to look at what was needed critically by the nation so that the right resources could be provided to strengthen the system.
Dr Adutwum assured the world of Ghana’s readiness to cooperate with agencies and institutions to discuss issues relating to the development of education in the world.
He indicated that Ghana was currently embarking on mapping Junior High Schools towards a review to support the planning of a new JHS schools’ construction to meet the demands of the 21st Century.
Some of the members of the Advisory Board took turns to talk about a mapping project being taken by the group to gather data on the location, the number of schools, facilities in them and what needs they had.
The data collection exercise is to help in proper planning and how to seek support for their improvement.
Several targets under SDG 4 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 and student’s needs, planning for resources allocation and access to other services such as health facilities, and policy planning that can improve the quality of education for students.
Professor Jeffery Sachs, President, United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, pledged to support Ghana’s education transformation effort after praising the government’s economic transformation agenda through the introduction of the Free Secondary Education.
He said the Network was providing accessible products 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.
Dr Jason Sawle, a United Kingdom based Education Consultant, charged the global education actors to take the issue of mapping of schools as crucial since it was needed to promote the development of nations through education.
He pledged to work diligently to bring out the best in the usage of mapping of schools across the globe since it could expedite action on the development of the world.
