The Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) at the University of Cape Coast is backing government to invest more in the educational sector to help alleviate poverty and the suffering of Ghanaians.

According to the UNESCO Category II Centre of Excellence for West Africa, many lives in Ghana could be turned around and the burden on the country reduced if quality education remains a priority of the country.

Speaking at the signing of an MoU with Innovations for Poverty Action, Director General for IEPA, Dr. Mike Boakye Yiadom, indicated that the institute would deepen its partnership with government to use education as a tool to alleviate poverty.

He says poverty alleviation is part of the commitment of the institute and supporting the educational system to work is one of its core mandates.

Dr. Boakye-Yiadom stated: “Poverty is part of the end product of what we do. If you’re talking about quality education, school improvement, at the end of the day, we believe that education is one key area for poverty alleviation and we should pay more attention to it.”

He further says, his outfit was committed to issues of research, issues of policy, issues of poverty alleviation, educational planning, educational leadership and school improvement.

“We believe that the two institutions have a lot of synergies and coming together to support our individual agenda for national development, is the best to go. And we are all moving towards achieving the sustainable development goals in all that we do,” he stated.

Dr. Mike Boakye-Yiadom was emphatic that through collaborative research and the training of leadership for the educational sector in Ghana and the West African Sub-region, many more lives in the country could be impacted.

“Already, government is doing a lot and, on our part, we would support better educational policies which would bring better educational outcomes.

For him, the country should look at the challenges in the educational sector as opportunities and discuss such challenges in the lens of the opportunities available.

“There’s nowhere in the world that has no challenges and Ghana is no exception. Yes, we have our challenges but we have the men and women here to deal with such challenges.”

He added: “I believe Ghana’s educational system is comparable to other educational systems in any part of the world. Our products are doing well and we have many Ghanaians who are excelling with the Ghanaian educational system in other systems of the world. We are doing well but we need to get better and with our support, our educational system would be one of the best, if not the best, in the world.”

Country Director for Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Salifu Amadu, believes the collaboration bodes well for the two institutions and would help a great deal in tackling poverty.  

“We are deeply excited at the prospects of what the IEPA and the IPA and we would work assiduously for a common course to address some critical societal needs,” he said.