SEND-Ghana identifies bottlenecks with free school uniforms programme
A report by Social Enterprise Development (SEND) Ghana, a civil society group, has recommended to the government to renegotiate and award the contract for producing fabrics for the free school uniforms to local companies as a measure to boost the local economy.
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The report has also emphasised the need for the government to give real meaning to the local content law by taking bold steps to encourage the garment production companies to purchase fabrics from local textile manufacturers rather than relying on foreign entities.
Again, the report, which was launched in Accra last Wednesday, identified the expansion of the free school uniforms programme to cover all public basic schools as one of the major factors affecting the effective roll out of the policy, and urged the Ghana Education Service (GES) to collaborate with local assemblies to involve small-scale hairdressers and tailors at the local level to sew the uniforms.
Presenting the report, a Senior Project Officer of SEND-Ghana, Madam Harriet Nuamah Agyemang said, “If the uniforms are not produced locally using local fabrics,it means the job-creation mission that the government intends to use as a measure to alleviate poverty and empower local businesses will be a mirage.”
Background
The free school uniform policy was introduced in September, 2009 by the then National Democratic Congress (NDC) Government as a social intervention programme in education, with the aim to reduce the cost of education and support needy pupils in selected public basic schools across the country.
The guideline for the implementation of the initiative required that fabrics for the production of the uniforms ought to be sourced locally while tailors and seamstresses in the local communities were also to be given the opportunity to sew the uniforms.
More findings
Details of the report showed the actual funds spent on the intervention could not be established, giving the indication that inconsistency in the allocation of fund was a major challenge to the effective implementation of the programme.
According to the report, a total of GH¢61,800,000 was allocated for the initiative from 2009 to 2016, adding that while GH¢39,360,00 was clearly allocated for the programme in the budget statements of 2009 to 2011, there was no information on how the total figure was arrived at.
The report also showed that there were inconsistencies in the total number of beneficiary pupils as official figures showed that 2,630,333 pupils received 1,768,690 uniforms.
Other challenges associated with the initiative, as spelt out in the report, included oversized uniforms, lack of involvement of district and regional directorates of education in the programme and failure to stick to the local content principle in procuring the fabrics.
SEND-Ghana ,therefore, urged the Ghana Education Service (GES) to ensure that the criteria for selection of beneficiary schools and needy pupils were adhered to.
The social organisation also called for the guidelines for implementation of the programme to be made available to the district and regional directorates of the GES to enhance effective monitoring.
Assurance
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Parliamentary select committee on Education and Member of Parliament (MP) for Jaman North, Mr Saaka Stevens, lauded SEND-Ghana for the initiative.
He gave the assurance that the Parliament would hold further discussions with SEND-Ghana and other stakeholders to assess the details of the report to boost the implementation of the programme.
The Dean of the School of Communication, Winscosin University College, Professor Kwame Karikari, observed that it was importantant for citizens’ participation in social intervention programmes.
“The current government must take this report without any biases and look at how to address the challenges,” he said.