GETFUND spends GH¢61m on infrastructure in two years

The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) has for the past two years spent GH¢61.048 million to support infrastructure development in all 38 Colleges of Education in the country.

Mr Stephen Baffoe, Public Relation Manager of the GETFUND, who disclosed this at the weekend, said the fund had also spent GH¢2.18 million on faculty development.

He was speaking at the 4th graduation ceremony of St. Joseph’s College of Education (JOSCO) at Bechem in Tano South District of Brong-Ahafo Region.

Diplomas were conferred on 449 graduates, made up of 224 regular and 275 sandwich students, who pursued a two-year diploma courses in basic education programme.

The ceremony was under the theme “Colleges of education in tertiary environment, the responsibilities of stakeholders”.

Mr Baffoe said now that Parliament had passed the Colleges of Education Act, which was awaiting Presidential assent, there was an urgent need for all stakeholders to join hands to ensure that the visions in Act 778 were achieved.

He said the Ministry of Education, as the principal stakeholder, was required to draw policies to guide the work of the National Council for Tertiary Education, under whose supervision tertiary educational institutions operate.

Mr Baffoe observed that colleges of education would require financial resources far more than what the GETFUND was able to provide on annual basis and it was incumbent on other stakeholders to rake in more financial resources to complement the Fund’s support.

Mrs. Cecilia Quansah, Principal of the college, said the college established in 1948 with 24 male students and three staff now had 831 students and 45 academic staff.

She explained that the college, being a Science, Technical and Mathematics one, intends to increase intake for these programmes to about 70 percent and the remaining 30 percent to the general programme this academic year.

Source: GNA