World Bank pledges support for Ghana’s free Senior High School programme

The Vice President of the World Bank Africa, Hafez Ghanem, made this revelation when he paid a courtesy call to President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House in Accra on Monday, March 25, 2019.

According to him, the World Bank is in support of the implementation of the programme to ensure quality education for all children of school-going age.

“We are very supportive of your decision to make all education up to secondary school free; I think this is extremely important, and we would like to help as much as possible.”

The World Bank boss is in the country for a three-day mission to discuss macroeconomic, fiscal and monetary policies and highlight opportunities for investing in education and booming digital economy.

Dr Hafez Ghanem challenged other African nations to emulate the success story of Ghana, saying that, quality education was the most important and not just access.

For him, the trend in Africa whereby young girls, who must be in school give birth at the expense of their education, have demographic and developmental implications.

He said, “So anything we will do to keep the children, both boys and girls in school until the end of secondary school is very critical, and we will be delighted and help as much as we can.”

President Akuffo-Addo who received Dr Ghanem also pledged to shun complacency and touched on plans by his government to redefine basic education in Ghana by making basic and secondary education compulsory.

He said that “this would become a strong legal weapon for ensuring that all children, especially girls of school-going age, stay in school until at least they complete secondary education”.

Dr Hafez Ghanem visit comes at a time when Ghana is finalising plans to exit the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, with an assessment team currently reviewing its viability.

The country has been entered into IMF programmes for not less than 16 times.