An educationist, Anis Haffar has called for a comprehensive policy to improve the standard of education in the country.
He said education should be treated as a national priority in the manifestos of all political parties seeking power.
“We have to make education a national priority and by national priority what I mean is that there has to be a campaign in this country; a campaign with the same focus, the same enthusiasm and the same effect as we do for political campaigns in this country.”
His call came shortly after President John Mahama in his State of the Nation address pledged to build 200 community schools across the country.
According to Anis Haffar, government should begin to redeploy teachers and distribute adequate teaching and learning materials to less endowed schools.
“It is also very important that the qualities at the teacher training sites are improved not in terms of the theories but in terms of practice.”
He admonished government to motivate teachers who will be redeployed to rural communities to stay in the classroom and deliver.
“The President also talked about improving the supply of teachers to the districts, that is also key, but people who want to go to the districts have to feel comfortable.”
On the implementation of free education by 2015, he suggested the need for government to concentrate on making education free for brilliant but needy students.
“Education is so important, there are those parents who will be able to pay and they should pay; they are those people who cannot pay and this is a dicey issue that has to be addressed in a communication as far as what we expect quality education to be in this country.”
He further said free education must commensurate with quality. “Free has to match with quality; the reasons why some parents will not take their children to a school that is free is because the quality is lacking so they will rather find the way to find money to take them to private schools.”
By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana