The Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) commends government for the inauguration of the Ghana Skills Development Fund (GSDF) committee. On Tuesday 22nd March 2022, the Minister of Education Dr. yaw Osei Adutwum inaugurated a 12-member GSDF Committee charging it to ensure sustainable funding to support Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
FOSDA is of the view that the committee’s inauguration will go a long way to strengthen Ghana’s commitment to domestic Financing of TVET in Ghana.
In 2020, the Government committed $60 million at the opening of the fifth Skills Development Fund (SDF) Fair in Accra. This commitment was announced because a major donor, DANIDA (Danish Government) who are major donors of the SDF since inception in 2011, will no longer support the project in subsequent years.
This reinforced FOSDA’s fears and worry about TVET funding especially that donor priorities could change at any point in time.
Ghana’s domestic financing for TVET is still very low with allocations averaging 2.86% of the total Education budget from the 2011-2018 period based on data from the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework. Also, within the ECOWAS region public expenditure on TVET as a share of the total Education budget ranges from 2%-6% indicating a regional financing issue. One of the challenges fueling this is the financial commitment at the international level. For instance, since 2015, UNESCO Member States agreed on a level of educational funding of 4 to 6% of GDP or 15 to 20% of public expenditure with very little of such commitments to TVET. In 2018 Ghana spent 18.6% of public expenditure on Education out of this TVET expenditure was 1.3% which is also the lowest spent on TVET since 2011. While Ghana made strides to meet global targets, it performed poorly on TVET compared to its past performances.
FOSDA is of the view that the inauguration of the GSDF committee is one of the best things to happen to TVET as long as financing is concerned.
Following our work on TVET for the past 6 years we reiterate our proposals for consideration by the Committee to support TVET financing through the Skills Development Fund.
- Revenue for potential funding of TVET is lost through tax exemptions of Multinational Corporations; therefor 50% of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) be allocated to the Skills Development Fund (SDF) especially for industries that are direct consumers Government TVET graduates.
- There is the need for a TVET Financing Policy taking into consideration CSR, management, allocation, equity, administration among others. The TVET Financing Policy will ensure consistent and sustainable financing of TVET in Ghana to match up with the ECOWAS average of 6% in the short to medium term and exceed it in the long term.
- 5% sourcing from the Petroleum Revenues
- Considering sourcing from the Communication Service Tax (CST). Since 2008 the CST has made over GHS 3.52 billion.
It is our believe that when these proposals are considered, enough funding will be made available to support the development of TVET in Ghana.