Major confectionery companies including Mars, Mondelez, Lindt, Ferrero, Barry Callebaut and Tony’s Chocolonely, are among enterprises contributing to a $80 million grant to improve Ghana’s education system, writes Neill Barston.
The Ghanaian Ministry of Education has secured the latest funding from a combination of private, and multilateral partners to improve access to education for all school children nationwide.
According to local sources, this will be combined with an additional US$38.8 million from the Early Learning Partnership Multi-Donor Trust and GPE, the funding will aim to drive improvements in foundational learning, including raising basic literacy and numeracy rates amongst primary-level school children and supporting their emotional and social wellbeing.
As Confectionery Production has previously covered, the topic of educational provision in the region remains of huge significance, with rates of school attendance have reportedly significantly improved within the past decade in both Ghana and neighbouring Ivory Coast’s cocoa communities increasing.
However, there remains a notable issue of child labour remaining with the industry, with the most recent figures from the International labour organisation stating that 1.5 million minors are still subject to the worst forms of labour – so providing access to education and wider community support measures is of crucial importance.
The project partners, known as SCALE, was created to support lasting improvements across Ghana’s education system by embedding local leadership, data-driven decision-making, and a holistic focus on children’s learning and wellbeing. In addition to expanding GALOP, it introduces new structures—such as Ghana Education Evidence and Data Lab (GEEDLab) and the Communities of Excellence—to effect lasting, system-wide change.
A consortium of over 10 philanthropic and private partners have reportedly raised US$40 million of that total amount to support the expansion of GALOP, Ghana’s flagship education program. GPE matched the consortium’s funding by providing a further US$40 million.
The US$80 million—the largest amount ever raised for education amongst philanthropies and private companies—forms part of an additional financing mechanism for GALOP, which now totals US$118.8 million, and will be administered by the World Bank as the Grant Agent.
Since 2020, GALOP has successfully invested US$218.7 million in targeted districts in Ghana. Over the next four years, this new tranche of funding will increase the total number of schools that are set to benefit from 10,000 to 16,000, plus a further 14,700 kindergartens.
Funds will support targeted, evidence-based interventions that will improve learning resources, teaching quality, and strengthen governance structures. These interventions will transform the approach to local schooling, sub-national planning, and national policymaking across Ghana to improve children’s learning.
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Education, Republic of Ghana said: “This is an opportunity for us. With a shared vision, a shared partnership, and a shared innovative financing for education. And it could not have been done at a better time.” He continued by saying, “Ghana has every reason to celebrate the impact made under the investment of GALOP, and SCALE is an extension of this.”
As the collective group added, its overall ambitions are centred on reform of how education is structured and delivered in Ghana, through enhancing practice to encourage a child-focused approach to further drive standards upwards within the region.