Non – Governmental Organisations (NGOs)
The NGOs provide major services to education, for example, school renovation and
construction including teachers’ quarters, provision of educational materials, in-service
training and up-grading of teachers skills, capacity building of P.T.A. functional literacy
classes with non-formal education division, provision of school uniforms, teaching of
science, mathematics and English in senior secondary schools. All these have
contributed to the improvement of educational quality in Ghana.
8.CHALLENGES OF MAIN STREAMING INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE
QUALITY EDUCATION
Notwithstanding the many advantages of the mainstreaming programme in special
education, there are several challenging situation that militate against its effective
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implementation.
Major challenges identified at the National Consultative Workshop and
through individual discussions are listed below:
. Lack of political will to incorporate research findings into policy initiatives and
enforce the implementation of such initiatives. As an example, it was mentioned that
research is replete with evidence to confirm the socio-cultural advantage of
identifying and developing one indigenous national language for the country. Yet,
the political will to initiate policy discussions on instituting a national local language
for the country has been problematic. This has affected pupils’ learning of the L1 in
schools.
. Financial constraints: this has been a major hindrance to mainstreaming change
initiatives in the educational sector.
. Absence of reliable and consistent database for targeted planning
There is difficulty in getting reliable data to inform quality decision making. Relate to
this is the absence of consistent methods for calculating resource requirement
projections and their enhancement to commensurate with emerging needs and
technologies of knowledge-based societies
. Ineffective leadership and supervision of change initiative implementation in
schools.
. Threat from diseases. Death and physical defects emanating from malaria,
HIV/AIDS and other diseases tend to affect the human capacity for supporting the
implementation of mainstreamed initiatives.
. Uneven distribution of human and material resources across the urban and rural
communities. In rural or disadvantaged societies, facilites to support change
initiatives are either non-available or inadequate to support he mainstreaming of
quality education interventions in the country.
. Lack of systematic and regular evidence of learning outcomes shown in terms of
standard, competency attainment and what students really learn
. Limited use of Information technology facilities to aid communication
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. Measuring and reflecting private sector and community financial contributions
towards EFA goals as reflected in strategies of public-private partnership – Engaging
more strongly with local level governance and financing for quality outcomes
