The Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA), a UNESCO Category II Centre for West Africa, located at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast - Ghana, joins other UNESCO Educational Centres to celebrate the “International Day of Education 2022”.

This year’s celebrations, the fourth to be celebrated since the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted a resolution for its celebration on 3rd December 2018, is being observed under the theme, “Changing Course, Transforming Education”.

The theme is aptly chosen to drive home the commitment of UN member countries when it adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015 and pledged to recognize the essential role of education for the success of all the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

At IEPA, the SDG 4, which is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, is at the heart of its operations.   The Director-General of IEPA, Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom noted that, “IEPA’s key mandate is to train educational leaders, planners and administrators as well as provide policy advice, backed by research, to governments in the West African sub-region on educational sector planning.  We therefore see the celebration of International Day of Education as a very important day to discuss opportunities and challenges facing West African nations in meeting the implementation of the SDG4.  Education in a COVID era has taken on a new dimension and it behooves all leaders in education to deliver inclusive and quality education as we live with COVID”.

It is important to note that the right to education is enshrined in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration calls for free and compulsory elementary education. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, further goes to stipulate that, countries shall make higher education accessible to all.

Speaking to the Head of Communications and Public Relations at IEPA Ms. Nana Efua Rockson, she explains that IEPA is celebrating the day by sensitizing their immediate communities, through the power of media, on the role of education to transform lives. It also plans to hold a forum at the Imam Khomeini Islamic School at Amamoma (a community around the University of Cape Coast) to empower and sensitize the Junior High Students on the need to take their studies seriously as education is the key to changing the course of their future.

It is instructive to note that, aside IEPA providing educational research and technically advising governments in West Africa on educational sector planning, it also mounts Masters and PHD programmes in Educational Leadership, Planning and Administration to build excellent leaders at all levels of the educational ladder towards the attainment of SDG 4.