The Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has stated that the ministry is currently tackling old challenges that were confronting the education sector of the country.
Speaking on the education system and structure, he indicated that some challenges are being worked on and the system is not falling apart as being purported.
“When some people are saying that education in Ghana is falling apart, I say to them we are now confronting the challenges that you either didn’t know or grossed over for many years. We are tackling them so that we can have a better education system.”
Dr. Adutwum
Dr. Adutwum stated that no administration will be faulted because, the comprehensive approach to making sure everything works in tandem has been missing.
“A few times, there are some knee jerk kind of reactions to situations which will bring about changes without looking at it comprehensively. And its not because we don’t have policies well written and shelved.”
Dr. Adutwum
Sectors’ non performance, due to inexecution of policies
He further averred that the sector’s non performance is due to the inexecution of the various policies which has been put in place and not because the sector does not have comprehensive policy.
“Consequently, the mismatch between the policy and the implementation can give the appearance of us not knowing what we are doing. But if we look for example, the 2018 strategic major stakeholder engagement, led to its development.”
Dr. Adutwum
The Education Minister also indicated that data analysis in the education sector has also been lacking, leaving the system in its current state.
Dr. Adutwum further revealed that, his data analysis indicated that there are some Senior High Schools, which have less than one percent of their students passing and entering into the university.
Based on this, he noted that the ministry has come up with strategies to help improve the various schools and their passing rate. He disclosed that the effective practices being used in other secondary schools will also be introduced and implemented in these schools to help make them very effective.
“In the education sector, we have to do about more than ten things before you actually see a change.”
Dr. Adutwum
New schools will be affiliated with top performing ones
Touching on transformation that will take place in the educational sector, he said no new school will be set up without it being affiliated to a top performing school.
“I will not preside over the reopening of any new school. We are building a beautiful school at Abomosu in the Eastern Region. And the school will not start without an affiliation with school like Presec. This is so that, the best practices in Presec will be implemented there.”
Dr. Adutwum
Moreover, Dr. Adutwum said seeding the practices from these top schools will also see the transformation of the low performing ones. He said the intentional proactive way of operationalizing, supporting and holding schools accountable is the missing link.
“The resources are there. I mean you cannot look at Abomosu,;look at Kwadaso creative arts school which is under construction, we cannot say we do not have better structures. Making sure that it is operationalized well, so that it can get better outcomes may be the missing link and we are fixing that.”
Dr. Adutwum
Commenting on the claims that the new educational system is dampening the top performing Senior High Schools, he was however of the view that it is rather an innovative way to ensure that all students receive quality education.
