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24.07.2006 Education

UK Pledges £105 Million To Help Send Every Child In Ghana To School

24.07.2006 LISTEN
By city news

The United Kingdom (UK) will provide £105 million in new funding to help Ghana meet the United Nations target of giving every child a primary education by 2015, Minister for International Development Gareth Thomas has announced while on a visit to the country.

The funding comes after Ghana set ambitious targets for the implementation of their national education strategy and put forward ideas for much needed reform across the education system.

The new education strategy will provide the launch pad to achieving the goal to provide universal access to quality basic education by 2015.

Gareth Thomas said, "Ghana's new education plan sets an important example for other African countries developing their own long-term education strategies. We would like to see more international donors supporting governments, like Ghana, with credible ten-year plans aimed at getting all children to benefit from good quality primary education".

DFID support in Ghana will help the country reach 100% enrolment by targeting the estimated 1.3 m children who remain out of school, and will seek to improve the teaching and learning environment that encourages more children, especially girls, to complete primary education.

A paper setting out how the UK government plans to help cut extreme global poverty over the next five years was launched last week. It sets out the government's support for the removal of school fees for primary education in order to help increase student enrolment in developing nations.

Ghana's abolition of school fees has seen a sharp rise in the number of children in primary and junior secondary schools. Enrolment of 6-11 year olds in primary schools has jumped by 400,000 in 2005/06, an increase of 14 per cent on the previous year.

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