We will support Ghana government to transform education - UN Ghana

The United Nations in Ghana is committed to assisting government in transforming education during the pandemic and beyond via creative initiatives that benefit all.

A press statement issued by the United Nations Ghana, copied to the Ghana News Agency said, the UN Ghana was bent on supporting government to transform its educational system.

The statement is in commemoration of this year's International Day of Education (IDE).

It is to acknowledge the central role of education in the development of sustainable, resilient societies and in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The theme for this year's IDE is “Changing Course, Transforming Education.”

The commemoration is to facilitate and celebrate initiatives led by government, educators, and organisations from global to grassroots efforts as well as partnerships that demonstrate the potential to recommit education to equity and relevance principles and to highlight commitments and follow-up actions taken to protect education.

The statement said, the Government of Ghana had shown a significant commitment to ensuring that students, especially, girls and students with special educational needs, continued to learn in a secured setting.

It said, government worked with the UN system via UNICEF, UNESCO, UNHCR and ILO and other development partners to provide solutions at all levels of the education system to maintain continuity of learning.

The statement said, Learning Management systems (LMS) had been established at public universities and colleges of education, and students at senior high schools (SHS) had been given access to the ICAMPUSGH online platform and the IBOX offline learning platform, as well as Ghana Learning TV and Radio programs produced for primary school children.

It said, in addition, learners at the primary level had benefitted from national distance learning programmes delivered via radio, which had continued to narrow equity gaps.

“Despite some challenges that have been encountered by students in accessing and using some of these learning systems, it is obvious that Ghana is striving to change course to transform education, and the United Nations in Ghana is delighted to partner with the government in its mission,” UN Ghana said.

The statement said, other notable initiatives that the UN was assisting the government to implement to make education resilient include a Rapid Risk Assessment of COVID-19's impact on the education sector and assisting in the design and implementation of interventions to mitigate the negative effects, ongoing capacity building for basic school teachers in Emergency Remote Teaching and ICT essential skills, and the development of the Ghana Open Educational Resource Repository(OER), which would eventually host over 3,000 open-source Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) materials from the Commonwealth of Learning (COL).

It said, approximately, 15,000 PDF's, interactive films, virtual laboratories, and other educational content now stored on the ICampus and IBox platform would be made available as OER for learners and educators to use.

The statement said, the policy environment was also being strengthened by the ongoing review of Ghana's ICT in education policy, while the institutional capacity of the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling (CENDLOS) had been strengthened by the drafting of the CENDLOS Bill and capacity building for CENDLOS staff, allowing the institution to play its role as the national entity responsible for ICT integration into education system more effectively.

“All these efforts have strengthened the education system with new approaches in transforming education in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond,” UN Ghana said.

“This progress by Ghana needs to be supported in a coherent and coordinated manner by partners,” it added.

GNA