This HCI stated that the poor quality of education would translate into a lack of capacity to support sustainable national development.

The report, which was made public by the World Bank Ghana Office, ranked Ghana 116th out of 157 countries.

The Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku-Prempeh, Deputy Minister of education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, attendee the event.

The National Coordinator of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), Ms. Veronica Dzeagu, were all present.

Also, present at the event were directors and heads of units and divisions of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

The national headquarters, regional directors of education, civil society organizations (CSOs) in education, as well as other stakeholders in education.

Ghana’s Human Capital To Go Waste In The Next 18 Years: World Bank Human Capital Index Reveals
Highlights of report
Presenting the HCI report, the Head Lead, Dr. Antonio Guiffrida, said the test scores of students in Ghana was 307.

On a scale where 625 represented advanced attainment and 300 represented minimum attainment.

He attributed the poor showing of the country on the test scores to poor quality of education and inadequate investment.

“The reality is that education in Ghana is not of good quality.

Some children do not go to school at all.

Others go to school but do not complete, while others are malnourished and cannot fully attain their potential,” he stressed.

Throwing more light on the report he said 95 out of 100 children in Ghana survived up to age five.

While a child who started school at age four was expected to complete 11.6 years of school by age 18.

It noted further that across Ghana, 76 per cent of 15-year olds would survive until age 60.

He disclosed that the HCI showed that 19 out of every 100 children were stunted.

Therefore, they were at risk of cognitive and physical limitations that could last a lifetime.

He stressed that the way forward to improving education and the country’s HCI ranking was to invest in quality education.

Ghana’s Human Capital To Go Waste In The Next 18 Years: World Bank Human Capital Index Reveals
Bad picture
Dr. Guiffrida said that Ghana has resources, but the country had failed because of the weak capacity of human resources.

He added that the only way to reverse the trend was for the country to invest in its human resource.

To imbibe the right innovation and technology that would help make the best use of natural resources.

Ghana’s Human Capital To Go Waste In The Next 18 Years: World Bank Human Capital Index Reveals
Way forward
In a presentation dubbed “Facing forward: schooling for learning in Africa”, by Dr. Antonio Guiffrida.

The Director said Ghana had made some gains in keeping children in school, but some were still out of school.

He called for adequate measures to be taken to check the dropout rate of schoolchildren.

Dr. Benveniste also noted that teacher absenteeism had been identified as a major challenge to educational outcomes.

“About half of the children who are in school are not being taught because of teacher absenteeism.

Again, idleness on the part of teachers during productive hours is a major challenge” he said.

He observed that the way forward was for improved supervision of teachers and effective monitoring.

Also, the evaluation of teachers’ performance and adequate financing of basic education.