Ghana’s Education minister Yaw Osei Adutwum denies wasting $1.2 million in World Bank cash for a teacher training program.
The money is in the account, Dr. Adutwum told reporters Thursday evening.
His words: “The money wasn’t for training.”
“The training was to be supported by us, and if we can show we have skin in the game and are dedicated to the change of education under GALOP, they would release the money,” he said.
“Nothing’s wrong because the World Bank accepted our funding,” he stated.
“It’s not true that I’ll supervise a project that doesn’t assist Ghanaians; I’ll never do it.”
I didn’t come to the U.S. to do that; I came to help the president reform education in the country. Others who don’t care will try anything to tarnish your image, he grumbled.
In addition to Dr. Adutwum’s explanation, the Ministry of Education issued a statement:
BACKGROUND
i. GALOP uses Results-Based Financing (RBF), where project funds are disbursed based on pre-agreed results and independent verification.
ii. In 2020, the Ministry secured additional SISm as COVID-19 Global Partnerships for Education Accelerated Funding to better respond to COVID-19 disruptions in education.
iii. One PBC for this component is Teachers Trained in Digital Literacy. MoE was supposed to train 40,080 instructors. S1.2 million will be spent on digital literacy.
ACTION TAKEN
iv. KA Technologies was hired by Ghana Education Service to supply laptops and train teachers in digital literacy.
To guarantee efficient use of sector resources, the Ministry used KA Technologies’ teacher training platform and the National Teaching Council’s platform to teach digital literacy.
v. As of November 30, 2021, 41,860 teachers had registered for digital literacy training on the KA Technologies platform, according to the Kanton platform. Of these, 40,042 had taken a digital literacy course. Similarly, teachers had accessed the NTC site and were training.
INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION
The project required Education Sector Development Partners to independently verify the Ministry’s achievement report.
vii. The Development Partners’ Group was presented with teacher training platforms, courses, teachers, and courses. The Partners’ autonomous interaction with the platform was also allowed.
viii. Issues raised by the Development Partners, such as the adequacy of the teachers’ training platforms, were addressed.
ix. After these engagements, Education Sector Development Partners confirmed PBC 7.2B in a letter dated March 25, 2022. The group noted that as of November 30, 2021, 41,860 teachers from 685 schools around the country had registered on the platform and 40,042 had completed at least five digital literacy courses. x. The World Bank transferred $1.2m to the Ministry after internal PBC approval. The money will be allocated for GALOP implementation in the next fiscal cycle per project arrangements.
xi. After the report and verification, many more teachers were trained on KA Technologies and NTC platforms. K.A Technologies has 148,510 users. On May 26, 2022, 43,988 teachers were trained on NTC.
MEDIA DISCUSSION
The World Bank has not written to the Ghana Education Service (GES) or any other Ministry agency to confirm results. Evidence of trained teachers is available on the NIG and KA Technologies platforms.
