The Member of Parliament for Builsa South Constituency, Hon. Clement Abas Apaak, has indicated that the Smart School Project (SSP) recently launched by the government is an attempt to deceive Ghanaians into believing the government has fulfilled its manifesto promise to Ghanaians.
He indicated that what the President did essentially by launching the project was to tell Ghanaians that he had fulfilled a campaign promise and therefore the NPP deserves another term in government given that the country is headed to the polls soon.
Furthermore, the Member of Parliament revealed that the NDC caucus in Parliament is not opposed to the provision of tablets loaded with educational content to enhance learning. However, he indicated that the NDC believes that the timing of the project is suspicious particularly when there is no available document for implementing the project.
“Strictly speaking, the government should have been telling us Ghanaians that it has made provision to procure and pay for about 2.4 million tablets and not 1.3 million tablets. According to documents provided by the MoE and GES, we have about 1.3 million and 1.4 million students in SHS and JHS respectively”.
Hon. Clement Abas Apaak
More so, Hon. Apaak indicated if the President and Vice President should be held accountable for their manifesto promise, the number of tablets that were distributed should be in excess of two million and not 1.3 million that was procured.
He accused the government of neglecting the other part of its promise to provide tablets to Junior High School pupils as part of the Smart School Project while it is focused solely on Senior High School students.
Hon. Apaak also indicated that the government was not being truthful with Ghanaians when it said the first batch of tablets would be followed by another batch to be distributed to second-cycle schools nationwide. He argued that the government has not made provision for the procurement of tablets in the 2024 annual budget nor has made provision for it in the GETFund formula budget.
Criteria For Tablet Distribution
He indicated that as at the moment the government has only procured 450,000 tablets, using funds from the GETFund, to be distributed among 1.3 million students in high schools. “What are the criteria by which 450,000 out of 1.3 million students are going to be selected to benefit from these laptops?” he quizzed.
Moreover, Hon. Apaak indicated that the Minister of Education when asked, on the floor of Parliament, the criteria by which these 450,000 tablets are going to be distributed to 1.3 million, could not answer. He stated that there are challenges with the implementation of the project.
However, Mr. Kwesi Kwarteng, the Public Relations Officer for the Ministry of Education argued that the logic behind the NDC’s argument is not substantive. He stated that the fact that some sectors of the country’s economy are not doing so well does not prevent the government from investing in other sectors.
He indicated that the entire globe is witnessing the fourth industrial revolution hence students at the pre-tertiary level have to be abreast with the digital space in order to be at par with the rest of the world to achieve socio-economic development.
“Yes, there are challenges in the Education sector like any other sector, I don’t need to itemize them… If you say you’re solving one problem before another, if you are not very careful by the time you finish solving one, the other challenge will be greater and you will need more effort to absorb it”.
Mr. Kwesi Kwarteng
Mr. Kwarteng further indicated that the government in collaboration with the Ministry of Education will launch the basic school aspect of the Smart School Project in the coming weeks, stressing that the basic schools will not be neglected in the digitalization drive.
Conclusively, while the Smart School Project is a good policy, like any other good policy that did not see fruition, the SPP lacks proper implementation. The hope, however, is that the government provides the necessary resources toward its implementation to ensure that the project achieves the aim for which it was instituted.
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