Government’s under-funding of Education Dept creating issues, council claims

THE Government has been under-funding the Education Department for more than 10 years, creating critical education service delivery gaps, according to the Consultative Implementation and Monitoring Council.
In a statement yesterday, the council claimed that education funding through the tuition fee-free policy and tuition fee subsidy policy had been “underfunded or stagnant for over ten years since 2012”.
It claimed that funding in 2012 stood at K634 million, while in 2021 it went down to K486 million.
This year, the Education Department submitted a budget of K772 million, but was appropriated only K486m. “Such underfunding has been further characterised by delays in the release of funds thereby affecting the delivery of education services,” the council’s statement said.
“Importantly, inadequate funding has created gaps resulting in important service areas such as early childhood education and adult literacy being given little attention, thus, leaving a large portion of children and adult population remaining illiterate.”
A study by the National Research Institute analysing the education budget from 2012 to 2018, found that early childhood learning for children between three and five years of age was given no funding between the years analysed.
Literacy, adult education, and special needs education were allocated 0.1 per cent of funding respectively.
The council’s statement added that previous governments had claimed that the tuition fee-free policy put more than one million children into school.