Executive Director of Education Watch, Kofi Asare, says he does not see government actively working to change the narrative of inadequate furniture in rural classrooms.

According to him, it feels like government did not prioritise the foundation of basic education.

The educationist does not see the rationale behind the government’s provision of free books and uniforms to students in secondary schools, while some in primary schools struggled to have necessities such as stationary and furniture.

In an interview on JoyNews’ The Probe on Sunday, he told host Emefa Apaw, “we are not committed. Government has not demonstrated any level of commitment to convince me that it appreciates the implication of 2.3 million children not having desks to learn on in basic schools.”

Mr Asare’s assertion is in response to a feature series on JoyNews that highlights the education infrastructure challenges in basic schools in three districts of the country: Krachi Nchumuru District, Kpandai District, and the North-East Region.

Kofi Asare also claimed that the nation was facing education infrastructure challenges in basic schools due to decades of negligence in the financing of those institutions.

Additionally, he stated that his organisation had been alerting government about this disturbing issue for a considerable amount of time.

“If you look at the infrastructure envelope of the ministry of education, majority of our infrastructure financing comes from the GETFund. In the past five years, the highest percentage of GETfund that has been allocated to basic education infrastructure is nineteen percent.

“And that is the percentage we are seeing as proposed in the GETFund formula for this year… it’s always been below twenty percent,” he disclosed.

He further asked that, “How come? Or how do you convince me that basic education of over six million children get less than twenty percent of GETFund, and secondary education of only one point three million children get sometimes almost twice that percentage and tertiary same?”