President John Dramani Mahama
The eight-member National Education Forum Planning Committee has scheduled the launch of the National Education Forum for Tuesday, February 18, 2025, in Ho, in the Volta Region.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, February 14, 2025, at the Ministry of Education, the Chairman of the Planning Committee, Professor K. T. Oduro, announced the theme for the event as “Transforming Education for a Sustainable Future.”
He outlined five key pillars that will underpin the purpose of the forum, noting that these pillars were identified through a careful consideration of the current state of the education sector, including existing challenges, the Ministry of Education’s Strategic Plan, the manifesto of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and extensive stakeholder engagement.
The five pillars include infrastructure, quality, regulation, accountability and governance, financing, as well as research and data.
He announced that the launch, which will be led by President John Dramani Mahama in Ho, will be followed by a consultative dialogue from February 19 to February 21, also in Ho.
The consultative dialogue, according to the chairman, will be extended to selected zones across the country to create a more decentralized platform aimed at broadening the scope of the National Education Forum.
The committee will conclude with a validation conference on February 27 and 28, 2025, at the University of Professional Studies, Accra, with stakeholders and development partners in attendance.
Professor Oduro stated that the committee expects to submit its final report to the Minister of Education by March 21, 2025.
“At the end of the day, we will have answered three key questions; what is going well with the current education system, what is not going well with the current education system, and what can we do as a nation to improve the system for the benefit of the young ones who are the future of our nation, the backbone of our society, and the individuals who will replace us as we retire. This can only be achieved if we provide them with quality education within the context of equity,” he stated.
Regarding the expected outcomes of the engagement, Professor Oduro emphasized that the National Education Forum is expected to lead to the development of an action plan to address the current challenges facing Ghana’s education sector.
“In conclusion, you may ask, what is the expected outcome of this? At the end of the engagement, both national and zonal, we expect that a consensus document summarizing stakeholder recommendations and discussions will have been developed. We also expect a thematic action plan for enforcing and implementing the reforms emerging from the engagement to be firmly decided, and, lastly, we anticipate drafting a framework for a national education policy,” the chairman explained.
President John Dramani Mahama, on February 2, 2025, announced the formation of the eight-member committee, headed by Professor Oduro, to plan a stakeholder forum aimed at reviewing the education sector.
Professor K. T. Oduro, who serves as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, is joined by esteemed academicians, including Professor Rosemary Bosu, Dr. Samuel Awuku, Professor Smile Dzisi, Kofi Asare, Stephen Owusu, and Inusah Shiraz.
The National Education Forum is part of the broader framework of the NDC’s commitment to revamp Ghana’s education sector and address its challenges.
GA/MA
