NGO to Develop Manual for Smcs

A project has begun to document best practices and experiences of school management committees (SMCs) to help guide others for improved education delivery in the country.

The two-year project, which started this month and expected to end in December 2020, is being implemented by Choice Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, with support from Gower Street Foundation.

In line with this, a stakeholders' identification, mapping and analysis meeting towards codifying the works and experiences of SMC networks in promoting good governance and accountability in the education system has been held in Tamale.

Representatives of civil society organisations working in the education sector and parent-teacher associations participated.

Mr Mohammed Seidu, Executive Director of Choice Ghana, said the SMCs were critical because of the roles they played in education delivery at the community level and therefore need to document their achievements and experiences to serve as a reference to others.

Choice Ghana has worked with a number of them in various districts across the Northern Region and has formed SMC networks in some districts including Kpandai, which has proven to be a much more efficient way of building and empowering them to influence the system and take actions to raise the quality of education.

He said the absence of a blueprint to serve as a reference document on SMCs, had been a missing link, something unhelpful to education development.

SMCs are responsible for strengthening community participation and mobilisation for improvement of education.

"We are going to identify partners that are working with SMC networks and also reach out to SMC networks to gather information on some of the achievements made and what has been done to improve education delivery to guide others."

He said "to ensure transparency, and good governance in the education sector, it is very important that we are able to take structures at the local level seriously".

"When SMCs are networked from the community level to the district level, they are better recognised by the duty-bearers," he added.

Mr Gaskin Dassah, National Coordinator of Northern Network for Education Development, spoke of the need to consult other regions and national level institutions to gather more information on SMC practices and activities to ensure that the manual to be developed would be acceptable to all.

Mr Askia Mohammed Prince, Deputy Director, Northern Regional Directorate of Education, lauded the initiative, saying, it would bring efficiency into education delivery as all partners would actively participate in efforts to improve education. GNA

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