GEOP is government’s mop up for Free SHS and FCUBE - Tema MCE explains

The Metropolitan Chief Executive for Tema, Yohane Amarh Ashitey, has explained that the Ghana Education Outcome Project (GEOP) is to serve as a mop up tool for the Free Compulsory Basic Education and free SHS programs.

In a write-up lauding the project which is aimed at returning over 70,000 children who are out of school back into school, he said GEOP will scoop children who fall through the cracks in as far as enrollment.

“Even though the project is for students at the Basic education level, it is just simple logic to see that the aim is to truly ensure that nobody is left behind as far as basic education, in its wholeness, is concerned.”
On behalf of President Akufo-Addo, Senior Presidential Advisor, Yaw Osafo Maafo, launched GEOP in Accra.

Since then, there have been suggestions, especially from detractors of government that the project is another waste of state resources because the country is already overburdened with the FCUBE and Free SHS.

However, according to the MCE, this is not the case.

Paraphrasing Mr. Osafo Maafo, he said that the beneficiaries will be taken through an accelerated learning programme (ALP) known as the Complementary Basic Education (CBE), a nine-month programme where children would be trained to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills through the period.

The MCE decried the situation where, “everything that government does is subjected to wild criticisms without any proper cause.”

During the launch, Mr. Osafo Maafo also explained that the Finance Ministry signed the financing agreement with the World Bank in as far back as June 2020.
“And so for those who are saying that government has started a new knee jerk project at this time of harsdhip, they are absolutely wrong.”

The MCE lauded the President, the Finance Ministry and the World Bank.