The Minority’s Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee and MP for Builsa South, Clement Apaak, has asked President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to direct the Finance Minister to release capitation grants to public basic schools immediately.
He revealed that the Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia administration has failed to disburse Capitation grants, which are necessary to ensure the smooth operation of Basic Schools in the country, for the past two years.
Speaking to the Parliamentary Press Corps about the matter and what he calls “embarrassing issues affecting Ghana’s education,” he said the government must be responsible.
This, he lamented, has an impact on teaching and learning.
The Builsa South legislator went on to say that, contrary to popular belief that Akufo Addo’s record in education is unsurpassed is a blatant lie.
Regardless, he urged the president to take appropriate action.
“It has become necessary for me to address you today because of a very pressing and embarrassing issue affecting Ghana’s education. I speak about what is going on with our public basic school system in our country.”
“As we speak, for two years now, the Akufo-Addo and Bawumia-led NPP government has failed to disburse capitation grants to ensure the smooth running of public basic schools in the country. The situation has become so dire that the conference of heads of public basic schools has publicly lamented. As a member of parliament on the NDC side of the education committee, my caucus has decided that we use your medium to call on the president to instruct the minister for finance to release the capitation grants for the basic schools.”
He stated that the capitation scheme, which was implemented in 2005, serves this purpose.
Dr. Apaak further noted that the purpose of the capitation grant was instituted to ensure that basic school was accessed free and to also finance administration and day-to-day needs of public basic schools including procurement of chalks, renovations, and attendance registers among other things.
However, due to the government’s inability to fulfil its mandate, most basic school principals have had to borrow money to keep their schools running smoothly.
He lamented that, despite a budget allocation of 60 million Ghana Cedis for capitation grants for the year 2022, the government owes 45 million Ghana Cedis for the previous budget year.
He said for the current year in question, the request was GHC61 million but the government only brought in GHC11 million for parliamentary approval and so ideally, the government should release an amount of GHC106 million.