Stakeholders in the education sector have pledged to collect credible data to guide policymakers in their planning for school children in the country.

They indicated that sometimes figures were at variance with the reality on the ground.

These were Schools Improvement Support Officers (SISOs), Planning Officers, Statistical Officers, and Training Officers of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Greater Accra Region who pledged their commitment at a one-day workshop organised by the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA), a UNESCO Category II Centre of Excellence for West Africa, based at the University of Cape Coast (UCC).

The workshop, held in partnership with the Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) of the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Commission for UNESCO, and the Ghana Education Service (GES), aimed at enhancing the data collection skills of participants to directly contribute to the reliability of the EMIS.

A Deputy Director General of IEPA, Prof. Alfred Kweku Ampah-Mensah, in charge of Academic Programmes and Professional Development, underlined the need for participants to take accurate data collection indicators for the health and well-being of students.

According to him, credible data would help authorities in the education sector to plan for all students in the second cycle institutions.

He urged participants to prioritise excellence in planning, training, and execution, as their work will directly impact the progress of the education sector.

He said evidence-based data was the way to go to improve formulation and planning to ensure learning outcomes.

The Director-General of the IEPA, Prof. Michael Boakye-Yiadom, said the data collection training was instructive and  was optimistic that participants would be empowered to collect data, analyse and share with policy makers to make the right decisions.

He urged participants to put the knowledge acquired at the training into practice and find an opportunity to share with others who were not privileged enough to be part of the programme.

Prof. Boakye-Yiadom said IEPA would organise workshops across the regions in Ghana so that other GES staff members would benefit from being equipped with the skills to collect reliable educational data for national development. 

Source: Documentation and Information Section-UCC