In 2020, the Ghana Education Service introduced a new curriculum at the basic level of the country’s education system.
The curriculum, described as standard-based, is said to draw on best practices all over the world.
Once education is globally said to be the key to national development and the globe goes through changes all the time, what it implies is that the content of education should change to meet the times.
Thus, the introduction of the standard-based curriculum was in order.
Since the curriculum is just the sketch of what is to be learnt, there is the need for books that provide the details of that sketch.
In June last year, the government announced that only local printers would print all the textbooks and that any publisher without an agreement with a local printer would not be considered for publication of any of the books.
This was a clear departure from the previous practice where a greater number of textbooks were printed abroad and gave hope of sustaining the local printing industry.
The assurance of having the books printed locally probably came in the first place to reinforce government decision taken in 2016, which helped to employ more than 40,000 people in the sector in 2017 when the printing actually began.
Besides, it was to say the current government would stand by its promise given in 2020 when it introduced the new curriculum to dispel any suspicion that local printers would be denied the job.
However, when there was no sign of any local printing going to take place, the Ghana Printers and Paper Converters Association raised concerns in April, this year, suspecting that members of the Ghana Publishers Association (GPA) might be conniving with some printers to execute the job outside, something the GPA denied.
Fortunately, yesterday the news broke that the first batch of 300,000 science textbooks for basic schools were ready for distribution across the country.
The books were printed by Appointed Time Printing Press, local printers.
This must kill any suspicion in the hope that all the other shortlisted printing houses would be given some contracts to undertake as promised by the government.
It is instructive to note that once awarded the contract, local printing companies have 120days within which to deliver the books.
However, Appointed Time Printing, as its name implies, has delivered the work far ahead of the 120days given it as the days started running from June 1, meaning the company could have delivered on September 28.
What Appointed Time Press has done confirms the fact that local printers have the capacity to deliver even earlier than could have been the case with foreign printers.
Since no question has been raised about the quality of work done so far, it implies that the expertise is available locally and even where one company lacks some in an area, they can always learn from each other based on their own terms.
It is often said “time is money” and some people wonder what that means; the saying, in a sense, is a piece of advice for the judicious use of time to maximise income.
By using less than a third of the time given it, Appointed Time
Printing can utilise the rest of it for other jobs and make more
money.
In fact, the company has taught all Ghanaians that idling, dilly-dallying, procrastination and their other siblings do the nation a lot of harm in terms of loss in man-hours and related income.
Doing a job locally and stopping its execution abroad, no doubt, saves the government problems like shipment and related matters.
The Ghanaian Times wishes to compare Appointed Time Printing with the proverbial ant referred to in Proverbs 6:6 and say not only the rest of the printers but also all Ghanaian workers should emulate the ways of Appointed Time Printing.
