The Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) at the University of Cape Coast has been officially launched as a UNESCO Category II Centre of Excellence by the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum.

The 40th Session of the UNESCO General Conference approved IEPA’s application for the Category II Centre of Excellence for West Africa at Paris in France in November 2020.

The official agreement between UNESCO and the Government of Ghana makes IEPA part of the UNESCO network to help promote UNESCO’s agenda in West Africa.

Launching the centre at a ceremony at the University of Cape Coast, Education Minister for Ghana, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, charged the centre to ensure that Ghana’s education system, especially, the basic education produces desirable outcomes.

He was of the strongest conviction that with the right educational leadership and planning, the education of Ghana would be a refreshing tale to tell.

He stated,” We cannot have a Centre of Excellence in a country where we are having challenges in our basic education, in terms of outcomes. We have a human capital of 44 which means if we don’t change the status quo, we will waste 56% of the human capital of the people growing up today. And it’s a call to action.”

He charged the IEPA to help in dealing with the situation and set the country streets apart from its peers.
He praised the sterling qualities of the IEPA led by its Director-General, Dr. Mike Boakye-Yiadom.

He says, with such strong leaders, Ghana’s education is in capable hands but stressed a lot more needs to be done.

Director General of the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom indicated the institute aims to become a strategic centre of excellence in educational research and training of educational planners, administrators, managers, and leaders in Africa.

He says as a lead Institute for educational planning, administration, management, and leadership in the West African sub-region, the IEPA exists to generate and disseminate reliable educational information for capacity building and to inform education policy formulation, planning, and implementation.

The IEPA, he explains, has conducted several research studies and trained several educational planners, administrators and managers from Ghana and other countries in the West Africa sub-region who are leading the provision of quality education in various countries (Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, etc.).

The following, he says, are some of the Institute’s recent milestones:
•IEPA/Centre for Global Development: COVID-19 Pandemic Response Study
•IEPA/British Council Ghana: Transnational Partnership in Higher Education Study, 2019
• Centre for Global Development: Reliability and validity of WASSCE Examinations Study, 2019
•University of Cape Coast, Placement and Utilization of ‘IEPA’ Graduates Study, 2018
• Ghana National Commission for UNESCO: Capacity building Workshop on Global Citizenship Education for Educators’ (GCED), 2018

•Ghana National Commission for UNESCO: Sensitization Workshops for Stakeholders in Education on the Education 2030 Agenda, 2018

• Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL), Ghana: Leadership and Management Capacity building for Public Colleges of Education, 2015-2018

The Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) was established in 1975 as an autonomous entity, through a joint UNESCO/UNDP and Government of Ghana agreement within which the UNDP provided the initial funding for the operations of the Institute.

Following the expiration of the agreement in 1980, the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Education and the Ghana National Commission for UNESCO took over responsibility of the Institute with full Government of Ghana funding for the Institute through annual budgetary allocation.

The Institute’s initial mandate was to train experts and non-experts in educational leadership as well as generate and disseminate reliable information through research to inform educational policy planning and implementation.

Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Prof. Johnson Nyarko-Boampong indicated the University of Cape Coast would give its full backing to the IEPA for them to deliver on their mandate.