Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), an advocacy organisation, has called on the Ministry of Education to create a budget line for the conduct of school-based examinations in all public basic schools.
That, it said, would enhance assessment practices in the schools in line with the curriculum’s assessment framework and aid preparation towards external assessment.
To date, it said, the country had not allocated funds for organising school-based examinations in basic schools, though schools received similar funds under the free senior high school (SHS) policy.
“With GES banning parents from paying exam fees in 2025, which is commendable, as those who could not pay were turned away from exams, the latent assumption that the Capitation Grant could finance school-based exams is unrealistic, considering that parents were paying at least GH¢20 for exams, an amount higher than the entire Capitation Grant per capita.
“The reality is that the lack of funds for school-based exams means many schools in deprived communities are writing exams from the blackboard, with zero exposure to printed paper exams,” the Executive Director of Eduwatch, Kofi Asare, said at a media engagement on the 2026 First Quarter Education Policy Monitoring Activity.
He said all schools reported receiving the three tranches of the capitation grant in 2025 (January, March, and July); the first time in many years, and that represented an improvement in funding predictability.
Despite improvements in timeliness, he said the amount of the capitation grant remained inadequate, stating that “schools consistently reported that allocations do not meet operational needs, including minor repairs, teaching materials, and administrative expenses.
Of enormous concern is the lack of a budget to finance school-based exams.”
Procurement
On sanitary pad distribution, Mr Asare said about GH¢292 million was allocated in the 2025 budget for the procurement and distribution of some 12 million sanitary pads in pre-tertiary schools.
Monitoring of the pad distribution, he said, found positive impacts on girls’ participation and hygiene, including reduced reliance on improvised materials as well as reduced financial burden on teachers.
“We call for a data-driven distribution plan for sanitary pads, strictly based on girls’ enrolment from upper primary upwards.
At the school level, only menstruating girls should receive pads.
There must be a published guideline for distributing the pads. Finally, the intervention must find expression in the Inclusive Education Policy,” he said.
On school feeding, he said in the 2025 budget, an allocation of GH¢1.78 billion was made for the provision of one hot, nutritious lunch for 4.2 million public KG and primary pupils at the per capita cost of GHC 2.00 a meal, an increase from GHS 1.50 in 2024.
Interviews with pupils, he said, revealed improvements in the quality of food provided under the programme.
However, concerns persist regarding portion sizes, which are often insufficient to meet pupils’ needs.
Allocation
In 2025, Mr Asare said the government announced an allocation of GH¢596 million for curriculum-based textbooks, an amount equivalent to 20 million textbooks and that “while we are aware of a concurrent curriculum review process, clarity on the status of the budgetary allocation is required, as the textbook situation in our schools does not reflect budget execution.
“We call for the procurement of textbooks and equitable distribution of the same, using enrolment data, to ensure equity,” he said.
In its monitoring, he said the organisation observed the lack of uniformity in the designs of various basic schools being constructed, with concern for the quality of ventilation and illumination.
“We call on the Minister of Education to work closely with the Local Government Ministry to ensure only MoE-approved school designs are constructed,” he said.
Teacher deployment
On teacher deployment, Mr Asare said that with 47,000 and 125,000 teachers at the kindergarten and primary levels, respectively, at the national level, the country had about 15,000 more teachers than required to meet a pupil-teacher ratio of 30:1.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh