The Ministry of Education is blaming District Directors of Education in the various Metropolitan, Municipal and Districts Assemblies for the challenges they encounter in the provision of education materials and logistics to schools across the country.
According to the Ministry, lack of information flow from schools that lacked the needed infrastructure and educational materials accounts for the delays in supporting such schools.
“We have identified the fact that in some districts, the DCEs, district directors of education have been regular with information and their management functions, and we commended them. But there are others that the information flow is very slow. We met recently in Kumasi to ensure that the system works,” a Deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa noted.
The Deputy Minister’s concern follows an intervention by the Vice Presidential Candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamoud Bawumia, who ordered 500 desks to be made for the pupils of the Kperisi Primary School in the Upper West Region, who have been learning on bare floors for months.
The school’s plight came to light after the State of the Nation Address last Thursday, where the President had boasted of massive achievements in the educational sector.
The Wa Municipal Assembly in the Upper West Region after the public outcry hurriedly initiated moves to provide desks for the pupils.
But speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, a Deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said “we expect the heads of schools, the district and regional directors of education to bring us up to date with timely reports to that effect because we cannot be everywhere at the same time. There are only three ministers of education; there is only one director general at the Ghana Education Service and two deputies. We have said that it is important for them to let us have quarterly reports and emergency situations for instance, a flood has happened and the roof of a school has been ripped off. When we wait for the media to come there or politicians to come there before you talk to the media and say that you are helpless, it is instructive to say that you are helpless.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana