The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), a coalition of Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in education, has held a day's sensitisation workshop for its members in the Western and Central Regions on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in education.

The workshop, sponsored by OXFAM International and ACTIONAID was on the theme, “Addressing Inequalities in Ghana’s Basic Education System Towards Achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4".

It was attended by selected journalists, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs),the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT).

Mrs Marian Fynn, Chairperson of GNECC for the Western and Central Regions in her welcoming address said the purpose of the workshop was to examine the arguments in favour of and against education PPPs to help citizens understand its full implications.

She said Ghana was not the first to venture into PPPs in education and that it has been in Africa for over a decade with mixed outcomes.

On his part, Mr Festus Longmatey, Programmes Officer for GNECC in a presentation, explained that PPP was an arrangement between public and private actors for the delivery of goods, services and facilities in the education sector.

He defined PPP in education as any collaboration between the private sector and the state, whether to produce textbooks, build school infrastructure or design learning software.

According to him, most often in policy circles, the term “education PPP” referred to a partnership with the private sector for the provision of education service.

Touching on the different models of PPP in education, Mr Longmatey said it could be through direct assistance to private schools such as per-student subsidies or block grants, and through public funding to private organisations to manage public schools.

He hinted that PPPs are mainly funded by the World Bank and other international organisations to promote an innovative solution to the challenges in public education delivery, to improve upon learning efficiency in public education so as to provide better learning outcome