Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, yesterday opened the Ministerial Meeting on Education for Western and Central Africa with a call on the regional partners to collaborate to improve educational outcomes in the two regions.

He said the region’s educational systems must focus on technical and vocational education to provide the youth with skills to create their own jobs instead of searching for non-existent white-collar jobs.

The conference organised by the World Bank and attended by Finance and Education Ministers, representatives of regional bodies and World Bank officials, was also used to launch the World Bank Africa Western and Central Education Strategy 2022-2025, was attended by representatives of 22 countries from West and Central Africa.

It was aimed at galvanising action around highlighting key findings of the World Bank Africa Western and Central Education Strategy 2022-2025 and building a coalition on education movement with increased focus on quality education to promote human capital in the Africa Western and Central Regions.

The World Bank Africa Western and Central Education Strategy 2022-2025 is a comprehensive roadmap with achievable target and outcomes.

Developed by education experts from the two regions, it is focused on improving teaching and learning, reducing learning poverty, expanding access to relevant jobs and skills training.

Opening the meeting, Dr Bawumia said the various countries coulddo much in education if they collaborate and tap the best practices from the education reforms of the various countries.

“Ghana’s education reform agenda can benefit from collaboration and synergy with our regional partners. That is what this conference must explore to spur up the collective growth of the continent because “alone we can do so little, together we can do so much,” he said.

The Vice President said the relationship between socio-economic development and human capital was critical, and that the reason the government was focusing on enhancing quality education delivery in the country.

He said Ghana’s policies on education access, quality, equity, relevance, skills acquisition and education financing reflected how the country was using education as a lever for human capital development and socio-economic transformation.

Dr Bawumia said over the past five years, Ghana had initiated a number of reforms to reposition the entire education system to produce a critical mass of assertive and empowered Ghanaians equipped with 21st Century skills in the 4th Industrial revolution for socio-economic transformation.