GOVT URGED TO ASSIST PRIVATE SCHOOLS (PAGE 22, NOV 27, 2010)

IT is an undeniable fact that education, especially formal education, is the key to the effective development of every nation.
It is in recognition of this fact that governments, the world over, strive to put premium on the education of their citizenry.
In fact, the so-called developed countries attained their current status because they spent a lot of their resources on their respective education sectors which in the final analysis have tremendously transformed their economies.
Having realised this reason, developing countries, including our dear nation Ghana, have decided to concentrate on the education of their children by channelling a greater proportion of their annual budgets to the education sector.
Currently, the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is painstakingly embarking on the infrastructural development of public schools at all levels, an aim the previous administration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) sought to achieve. Indeed, it is the wish of every serious-minded government to place education high on its developmental agenda.
Governments are desirous to pay maximum attention to education and in fact, much more attention is placed on public educational institutions. However, the question arises as to what the government is doing to assist the private schools since there are a number of potential benefits to strengthen the private school sector. Admittedly, the private sector is the engine of growth and the education sector should not be an exception.
There is an observation that private schools of varying quality are mushrooming in the developing world. In the private education sector, some schools appear to deliver quality education to the poor than the public schools.
In Ghana, for instance, there is an overall perception among parents that private schools provide better education than the public schools, at the basic level a notion that is substantiated by the results of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), which is the only criterion considered for entry into the Senior High Schools (SHSs).
It is also estimated that nearly 75 per cent of all schools in the Greater Accra Region and the other cities in the country are private institutions and those schools mostly serve the poor. As stated earlier, there are a number of potential benefits to be derived if the private sector education is strengthened diversity.
In addition to reducing the burden of financing education from government expenditure, stronger private schools might increase the diversity and choice in educational provision and the access and quality in education as well as improve the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of schools.
However, there are a number of factors that negatively affect the growth and quality of private schools. They include limited access to financial assistance, which appears to be the major one.
While some private schools are poorly managed financially, owners of those institutions often have few options to finance their business and are forced to rely on their savings and family loans to establish, grow, improve and sustain their schools.
Consequently, many credit institutions are reluctant to provide loans to private schools because they are perceived as risky investments. Many of those schools also lack credible accounting and financial management practices that can allow financial institutions to appropriately evaluate risks.
In the light of this phenomenon, a policy dialogue is needed among the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ministry of Education, authorities of private schools, donor agencies, parents, among other stakeholders, focusing on how private schools might achieve greater recognition and credibility and determine how they might fit into the country’s education goals in consonance with the Millennium Development Goals.
Given the potential of private schools at both the primary and secondary levels to improve efficiency, access and quality, governments and donors ought to consider private schools as partners in achieving education for all and working with the private sector to achieve such goals.
This, however, requires a new type of programming. The means to achieving such goals requires mobilising and increasing the effective use of financial resources.
It is in response to this thought that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), working through The Michel Group Incorporated (TMG) in 2009, launched an Affordable Private Schools (APS) pilot project in Ghana.
The APS is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the needs of the private basic education sector and to gather best practices and lessons learnt specifically about how best to meet the financing and other needs of this sector.
In fact, TMG Incorporated is helping the private education sector in Ghana to improve the internal operations of private schools and enhance their ability to access affordable credit to expand infrastructure and improve the quality of education.
TMG Incorporated, under USAID-funded programme and in partnership with ASKY Services Limited, a private enterprise in Sunyani, is organising a series of training programmes for owners/managers and prospective owners/managers of private schools in internationally accepted best practices in Business and Financial Management four days workshop.
Recently, 20 proprietors and managers attended a four-day workshop in Sunyani. During an interaction with the Daily Graphic, Mr Baba D. Anaba, the Project Co-ordinator of the TMG Assistance to Basic Education in Ghana, stated that the APS pilot programme was geared towards developing a package of operational best practices and lessons learned in enabling quality private education, with focus on stimulating affordable private financing for private schools.
According to Mr Anaba, the focus was also to build the business, managerial and teaching capabilities of private schools, building banks’ capacity to develop appropriate credit products for the schools and developing mutually beneficial relationships between private schools and the Ministry of Education.
The Co-ordinator disclosed that the results from the programme to date included a total of $600,000 loan by partner bank to schools which had benefited from the training so far.
He added that 85 Ghanaian private sector schools had received loans with an average size of $7,680 and a range loan size of between $1,000 and $36,000.
Mr Anaba stated that over 100 schools had participated in the group short-term working capital loan programme.
He said training programmes were currently being conducted in three different regions while more than 230 private school owners who were also members of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) from Ashanti, Central, Greater Accra, Brong Ahafo, Eastern, Volta and Upper East Regions, had attended the financial management workshops.
The workshops were aimed at empowering private school proprietors to manage their schools effectively’.
The proprietor of Kasipe Memorial International School at Sampa in the Jaman North District in the Brong Ahafo Region, Mr Siaka Stevens, who was a participant at the workshop, told this writer that the programme had been an eye opener and had strengthened him in particular.
‘‘I can now see far because I have learnt new ideas and methods of supervising and managing financial aspects of my school,’’ he stressed.
According to him, the government had never invited proprietors and managers of private schools to any of such workshops and so in the past, he did his own thing until USAID/TMG came in with the programme. Mr Siaka, therefore, commended the group for the support it had offered him so far.
The Headmistress of Hwediem OLA Preparatory/Junior High School in the Asutifi District also in the region, Sister Theresa Anima Kusi, shared a similar experience with this writer, stressing that she had learnt certain ideologies at the workshop, such as effective financial management and proper supervision of both members of staff and students, which hitherto she never knew.
‘‘I now know how to work with my accountant, going by the steps I have learnt here and it will be a reminder to me at all times in managing the school with my other sister colleagues. Henceforth, we shall be as flexible as possible to achieve the maximum results,’’ she stated.