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Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, on Monday stressed the need for Africa to recognise the right of children with disabilities to access quality education on the continent. She said the current trend demonstrates that children with disabilities are being neglected and excluded from accessing and benefiting from education. �When children with disabilities are denied access to education they are restricted in fully participating and contributing their quota to the society,� she said. Nana Oye Lithur who was speaking at the commemoration of this year�s African Child Day celebration, said: �If we want to eradicate the problem of our children with disabilities being socially vulnerable and excluded, then we must make education accessible to them.� The Africa Union set aside June 16 each year to commemorate the massacre of thousands of black school children of Soweto, South Africa in 1976, which went on a peaceful protest against inferior quality education and demanded their right to be taught in their native language. Hundreds of these young children were shot and killed by security forces and more than a thousand were injured and the day was to honour those fallen heroes for their bravery and also show the courage of those who marched. The Minister said this year�s celebration on the theme: �A child friendly, quality, free and compulsory education for all children in Africa,� sought to highlight the need to educate children with special needs and make education accessible to them. She said education of children with special needs is designed to facilitate the learning of individuals who, for a wide variety of reasons, require additional support and adaptive pedagogical methods to participate and meet learning objectives in an educational programme. Nana Oye Lithur said although there has been progress in access to education for children all over the world as seen in the increasing enrolment figures, for some children poverty remains prevalent, preventing them from accessing education. She said the right to quality education should enable children to acquire the skills that develop their talents, interests and knowledge, which would prepare them for their future career objectives; therefore, it needs to be child-centred and a constant monitoring of standards in the level of education is imperative. �Unfortunately, much attention is being focused on getting the children to the classroom but the process of teaching to attaining quality, relevant and continued education is given little attention. �Promoting education for all children with emphasis on quality brings enormous benefit to the quality. Quality Education helps children to resolve conflict and tension in a non-violent manner as it creates an atmosphere of where no child is discriminated or bullied,� she said. Ms Susan Namondo Ngongi, Resident Coordinator of Ad Interim, expressed the need for countries to invest in children to guarantee their sustainability of development achievement. She commended Ghana for some of the key investments it had made over the years in the education sector. She said those investment are beginning to pay off and over the recent years, there had been significant improvements towards the goals of universal education for all children and gender parity in primary school. �While some very good investments in education have been made and we are seeing some results, there remains much to be done to achieve our development goal of universal primary education and to eliminate all gender disparities in primary and secondary education. �Sadly not all schools are safe space for children, not all schools have adequate water and sanitation facilities and this negatively impacts learning, particularly for young women who have started menstruation. �I know the Government is working on all these management and efficiency challenges. It is crucial we accelerate our efforts to realise the benefits of the substantial resources the Government rightly invests in its school children,� she added. Mr Mahama Ayariga, Minister of Information, said Ghana is one of the highest spenders on education on the continent. He said at least 35 per cent of the country�s budget goes to finance education and beyond that most district assemblies spend more than half of their share of the District Assemblies� Common Fund on education. �Members of Parliament (MP) also spend a chunk of their MP Fund on education and putting all these together the percentage is even above the nine per cent agreed on at the Darkar Accord,� he added. He announced that schools grant model is being piloted in 75 districts and if successful it would be scaled up to the rest of the districts to improve education and commended NGOs in Education, especially Plan Ghana for the efforts in the sector. Mr George Yorke, an Official from Plan Ghana said: �As we reflect on the day, we must remember that education is a fundamental human rights and the foundation to development every country including Ghana and called for all inclusiveness to increase enrolment.