The Programme Officer of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), Festus Longmatey, has appealed to the government to rescind its decision to outsource the management of public education to private individuals.
According to him, the Public and Private Partnerships (PPP) project which would take effect on September would not help the nation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Mr Longmatey disclosed this at an accountability forum on education in Accra, last Wednesday, a programme organised by the Greater Accra Youth Network (GYN), a coalition of youth groups under the National Youth Authority (NYA).
Dubbed, ‘Working together to improve education outcomes in basic schools in the Greater Accra Region,’ it brought together educationists, pupils, teachers and other stakeholders to deliberate on the subject matter.
“PPP in education has existed over the years and the constitution also makes provision for such partnership but our concern is that some children will be left out if the government implements the policy,” he said.
Mr Longmatey noted that outsourcing the public schools to non state actors would compel private individuals to work with an objective of making profit, hence would not help in inclusive education.
Citing that a child seeking admission would be admitted based on academic prowess which would deny some kids from acquiring knowledge.
He charged government to thoroughly research on the PPP policy to identify the lapses and build on it before implementation, adding that “the government could invest the money which would be used to employ private entities in the sector to enhance capacity building”.
As part of ongoing reforms in the sector, Mrs Augustina Brown, Basic Schools Coordinator of Ga East municipality, indicated that government has rolled out projects to train teachers in August on the new curriculum to ensure effective teaching and learning in the next academic year.
She explained that the new curriculum was pupil centred with an aim to unearth talents of children.
Mr Godson Charna, the Researcher of GYN on his part, charged government to ensure that all basic schools in the country were provided with the needed resources and facilities to achieve the purpose of the new education curriculum.
He bemoaned that the current educational facilities in some partsof the country were not in a good shape to absorb the new mode of teaching, stressing that some pupils were sitting on bare floors and some were not having ICT laboratories.
BY JOYCELINE NATALLY CUDJOE
