Politicians To Sign MOUs

Child Rights International, a Non-Governmental Organization, has expressed their commitment to insist on politicians fulfilling their promises so far as education is concerned through the signing of MoUs. Child Rights International in partnership with Action for Rural Education and with funding from STAR Ghana is implementing the Education Agenda 2015 (EA-2015) Project. EA-2015 aims at developing a civil society education manifesto, through extensive consultation with civil society in Ghana, for the purpose of engaging political parties in the 2012 political campaign season. The project will also engage political parties on the Education Strategic Plan 2010-2020, thereby committing them to implement the broad policy plans embodied in the ESP 2010-2020, and also specific policy proposal embodied in the Civil Society Education Manifesto. The objective of this manifesto is to secure commitment of political parties on the ESP 2010-2020 and the civil society education manifesto. Per their research and other findings, they realized that the level of education has dropped due to the fact that politicians say one thing and does the other. Apart from that majority of the teachers in the various sectors (Kindergarten, Primary, Junior High and Senior High) are not getting the opportunity to acquire more knowledge. At the launch of the Civil Society (CS) Education Manifesto, Mr. Bright Kweku Appiah, Executive Director of Child Rights International said it is about time politicians are held accountable to their words. According to him, he finds it hard to understand how politicians claim to take laptops to places where there are no electricity and still insists on fulfilling their promises concerning education. He said the group is going to enter into an agreement with the politicians and encourage them to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). He made emphasis on the fact that since the country is in an election year, the group is going to pay particular attention to the manifesto that will be read by the various politicians and hold them to their words as far as education is concerned. Mr. Appiah said it is in view of this that the Civil Society (CS) Education Manifesto is being launched. According to him, the project will adopt an advocacy strategy to position education issues at the highest level of political discourse, to commit political parties to implement the CS Education manifesto and to commit political parties to implement the Education Strategy Plan (2010-2020) without making any fundamental changes. �All of us are part of the civil society and that is why we are not leaving the media out�we want to see how best we can influence politicians and political parties to buy into the strategic plan as the basis for drafting the political manifestos. We are going to build consensus with people�we want the politicians to commit themselves to the CS Education manifesto discussion as well as the strategic plan and we need the media to help us�to commit the political parties, we are also going to sign a memorandum of understanding with them; so that when they come into office we can hold them to it. We are not going to leave any political party to make any statement when it comes to education�,� he said. Below is a copy of their statement.