UK pledges £105m to help send children to school

Accra, July 24, GNA - The United Kingdom would provide 105 million pounds in new funding to help Ghana meet the UN target of giving every child a primary education by 2015, Minister for International Development Gareth Thomas has announced.

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, according to a statement issued on Monday by the British High Commission in Accra. It said the new education strategy would provide the launch pad to achieving the goal to provide universal access to quality basic education by 2015.

Mr Thomas, who was in Ghana last week said: 93Ghana's new education plan sets an important example for other African countries developing their own long-term education strategies. =93We would like to see more international donors supporting governments, like Ghana, with credible 10-year plans aimed at getting all children to benefit from good quality primary education.=94 Support of the British Department for International Development (DFID) in Ghana would help the country to reach 100 per cent enrolment by targeting the estimated 1.3 million children, who remained out of school, and would seek to improve the teaching and learning environment that encouraged more children, especially girls, to complete primary education.

A paper setting out how the UK Government plans to help to 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 to 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 years to 11 year-olds in primary schools has jumped by 400,000 in 2005/06, an increase of 14 per cent on the previous year. From 1998 to 2005 the UK committed A350m to Ghana's Education Sector Support Programme. Ongoing work in the education sector is closely aligned with support from the likes of the World Bank, the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (FTI) and the Netherlands Government.