The Education Minister, Haruna Iddrisu, has announced the government’s intention to introduce integrated basic education model schools from 2027.
He explained that the model would include structured education from kindergarten to junior high school, providing a comprehensive one-stop centre for basic education.
He announced this at the 64th Annual National Conference of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) in Ho, in the Volta Region.
He said the initiative aims to address the country’s infrastructure deficit, with reports by the Auditor General indicating that about 3 million pupils in 10,730 schools across 13 regions lack classrooms, forcing pupils to learn in unfavourable conditions.
“For literacy to succeed, we have to realign investment and spending to foundational learning and basic education. I’m happy to know that from 2020, there will be only one new model of an integrated basic school built everywhere in Ghana.”
“That integrated model basic school will have a kindergarten, a primary school block, a junior school block, a changing room, ICT, STEM, laboratory, and water processing facilities housed in the same facility across Ghana”, he said.
He indicated that construction of the integrated basic education model schools would commence across the country next, as the President has already given executive approval for the project
The President of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools, Rev. Fr. Stephen Owusu Sekyere, alluded to the lack of enough furniture, infrastructure and vehicles in schools across the country.
“We call on government to roll out an emergency intervention to resolve this enduring problem. We also appeal to government to complete the several stalled GETFund projects in schools”, he appealed.
He said that the continuous delay in the release of operational funds for the schools has made administration of the school “stressful”.
He urged the government to adopt a predictable funding mechanism to ensure the timely release of funds and also clear perishable and recurrent arrears from 2021 to 2025.
“Outstanding balances spanning from 2021 to 2024 remain unpaid and require urgent settlement to enable schools to clear their longstanding indebtedness to benevolent creditors”, he said.