Education to witness largest expenditure – Finance Minister
Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta
In line with Government’s belief in investing in human capital,
education is about to witness the largest capital expenditure in the
sector for any single year in the last 50 years.
Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister said the Government would
continue to ensure that these investments lead to an increase.
“Government has presented to Parliament, a proposal to secure up to
$1.5 billion long-term financing for GETFUND on the back of a portion
of VAT receivables as prescribed in Act 581, which will be issued in
three tranches of $500.00 million,” Mr Ofori-Atta said in his
presentation of the 2019 budget statement and financial policy of the
government to Parliament on Thursday.
“This will be used for critical education infrastructure, especially
to complete the numerous uncompleted buildings in secondary and
tertiary institutions around the country.”
He said in 2019 the Government would commence work to upgrade 10
Technical Universities /Polytechnics and 13 Technical Institutes with
modern equipment and also train selected lecturers of these
institutions.
He said to further develop the TVET sub-sector, the Government
would commence the construction of 20 state-of-the-art TVET Centres as
well as upgrade and retool 34 Vocational Training Institutes in 2019.
He said in addition, two new centres in foundry and machining would be constructed.
Mr Ofor-Atta said as part of its drive to promote Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education across all
levels, the Government would in 2019 roll out the Basic STEM programme
in 7,000 basic schools across the country; construct 10 STEM Centres;
initiate the development of a knowledge cloud to make educational
materials content accessible to all; and provide multimedia laboratories
as well as internet connectivity to cover many more schools.
He recalled that in 2018, the Government also cut-sod for the
construction of a multi-purpose Youth Resource Centres in every region
of the country.
He said construction work had started at all the sites and were at
various levels of completion; adding that, the centres would provide
space for youth engagement, recreation, centres of learning and sports.
