Ahead Of 2020 Elections: CSOs Begin Interaction With Political Parties Over Manifestoes

On Tuesday 2nd June 2020, Africa Education Watch led a delegation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) including ActionAid, World Vision, the SGD 4 Platform and the Ghana TVET Coalition to present the Civil Society Education Manifesto 2020 to the Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Hon. Freddie Blay.

The Manifesto is the outcome of months of deliberations on policies that require priority attention of Political Parties as they develop their election manifestoes ahead of the December 2020 elections.

Over 30 CSOs including Oxfam, Northern Network for Education Development (NNED), Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), Plan Ghana among others partook in the deliberations leading to the development of the manifesto.

The NPP Chairman welcomed the policy suggestions and encouraged further engagement with the Education Committee of the Party.

On their part, the CSOs called for among others, a free TVET policy for both the formal and informal sector, extension of free compulsory universal basic education to cover Nursery, increased budgetary allocation from 13% to education to 20% of national budget, the introduction of a local language policy which permits flexibility in instruction by adopting local languages to teach children in the lower primary, especially in indigenous communities, and the scrapping of teacher trainee allowance policy while replacing it with student’s loans and scholarships.

The CSOs will make a similar presentation to the National Democratic Congress in the coming days, after which further consultations shall be held with their manifesto committees.