As part of ongoing conversations about challenges confronting the education sector in the country, the former Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Kwasi Kwarteng has urged the government to audit the furniture and infrastructure in public schools.

The launch of the National Education Forum, themed ‘Transforming Education for a Sustainable Future” has sparked conversations about Ghana’s education sector.

“I am of the view that particularly, for instance, this new government can do an infrastructure audit and also do furniture audit in all existing schools, even including the schools under trees and based on the infrastructure and furniture audit, they will be able to have a comprehensive report on that and then tackle or address it”
Kwasi Kwarteng, Former Public Relations Officer for the Ministry Of Education

Having described the lack of adequate furniture in public schools as a “systemic problem” facing Ghana’s earnest efforts to educate its children properly, the former public relations officer proposed this systemic approach would guarantee headway.

He explained that an audit would guarantee a reliable database of all schools needing furniture and infrastructure interventions, that the government can confidently begin providing for and checking off its list.

According to him, such a meticulous strategy in combating the issue would yield results unlike any other, and is infinitely better than waiting for the occasional media reports on a dilapidated and underdeveloped school so it intervenes.

Failure to address the furniture and infrastructure challenges facing schools in the country, intentionally, would negate the occasional or “knee-jerk” efforts made for random schools in the long run, and also perpetrate a type of inequality for the schools that never get help.

The solution is not to sit down and fold hands even when handicapped schools draw public attention due to the uniqueness of their challenges.

“The furniture crisis is very real. I recall off the top of my head, there were about almost 1,500,000 deficits in furniture.
“And, I’ve always maintained that the challenges within our educational sector have been systemic. So even though you may provide some intervention, you may not be able to resolve it all”
Kwasi Kwarteng, Former Public Relations Officer for the Ministry Of Education

He also advanced that involving the District Assembly (D/A) authorities, and all their effects, would effectively enhance the government’s strides in resolving most of the problems facing public schools and education.

Sagbonjida D/A School

The case of the Sagbonjida District Assembly school in the north, which is not only faced with infrastructure and furniture deficits, but a staggering shortage of teachers has further revealed the harsh reality in the education sector.

The situation has forced untrained teachers to volunteer and educate the children in the district as best as they can.

Speaking on the issue, Dr. Peter Anti, Executive Director of the Institute of Education Studies, expressed that government policies have not been fair in targeting all areas of society.

“It is an indication that our education policies have not been targeted well in terms of a teacher deployment, in terms of supervision and monitoring, in terms of provision of educational resources – that is what this tells me”
Dr. Peter Anti, Executive Director of the Institute of Education Studies

It has become clear that the myriad of the challenges you would find in schools in rural areas are barely mirrored in those in the urban areas, and vice versa with the advancements of schools in the urban areas.

This kind of deficiency in education is experienced mainly by the “disadvantaged in society”.

Dr. Anti advocated reliance on already existing data on schools in the country in resolving these challenges.

Carefully curated information about the nature of basic schools, the number of teachers, their qualifications, and the number of students in them is only “a click away” for anyone in authority.

“So if we really want to solve our educational problem, we just have to rely on the data and then start addressing the problem based on what the data is saying”
Dr. Peter Anti, Executive Director of the Institute of Education Studies

He also put forth that ignorance was not to blame for the sorry state that most of the schools in the country are in since the database is updated yearly with information from other surveys and inspections readily available to the leaders.

In his opinion, the Sagbonjida D/A situation indicates how poorly education policies have been planned, targeted, and implemented in the country to the detriment of certain “categories of people”.