A former Minister of Education, Professor Dominic Fobih has downplayed the effects of government’s intervention of distributing free sandals to pupils across the country on the education sector.
According to him, such a gesture cannot improve the sector.
[contextly_sidebar id=”NSyNVJohC049f1lkh4aIFlpGxL91BQKZ”]Government has among others, freely distributed a number of school related items to deprived schoolchildren in the country.
On Monday, President Mahama presented 10,000 school sandals for onward distribution to school children.
This, government said is part of its social intervention programs aimed at reducing the burden on poor parents in taking care of their wards.
However, Professor Fobih told Citi News such interventions only improve school enrolment but do not improve the quality of education.
“Many of our pupils at the primary level cannot even read or write and their mathematical knowledge is very poor. Their knowledge in science is equally so. What are we doing as a nation about these things? We are buying pad today, tomorrow we are buying something else but what about the real core of education that will help the pupils to achieve competence?”
He insisted that instead of distributing shoes to school children “government should concentrate more on the core issues and then less on some of these peripheral matters. Many of our children cannot read and write, and we haven’t had any headway, its looks like we are brushing that aside and tackling other things which are peripherals.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana