According to the minority, the Buffer Stock Company has been engaging in certain procurement procedures which are fundamentally alien to the Public Procurement Amendment Act 2016, (Act 914).

[contextly_sidebar id=”i0BRNO30RfU9nkP0GhTjeLeOOftL2XUo”]Speaking to Citi News, Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, said no competitive bidding was done for some companies contracted by the Buffer Stock Company.

He has since demanded an immediate reversal of government’s contract with the Buffer Stock Company for the supply of foods to Senior High Schools.

“[The government must] investigate the process that is being used currently, which we feel is not proper, it’s not transparent enough. After they do that, they should come up with better modalities for the supply of food items to various secondary schools so that students will be fed well. The whole system should be decentralized,” he said.

He noted that “before the coming of the Free SHS, Senior High Schools were given the opportunity to have their own tender entities, they will advertise that they want food items, so they have suppliers who supply them and they are paid.”

Peter Nortsu-Kotoe said the minority is considering summoning the Education Minister and the Minister for Food and Agriculture before Parliament to answer questions related to the development.

“We have ministers responsible for buffer stock and SHS, we’ll call them to parliament under urgent question to come and answer questions over the issue and what they are doing to remedy the situation,” he said.

Meanwhile, in November 2017, the NFBSC abrogated over 50 contracts with various suppliers contracted to provide food to various Senior High Schools across the country under the Free SHS policy.

It said the move was due to non-performance of the suppliers.

The government engaged the Buffer Stock Company to buy food produced locally for supply to the various senior high schools in the country.

The directive was also to create a ready market for local farmers.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The sector minister indicated that, his visit to the school forms part of the plan to engage the private schools on ways to change the curricula, increase infrastructure and improve the quality of teachers.

“One of the things we want to do is the curricula review, and we hope that when we are done, the new curricula will give emphasis to what is necessary in our public education as compared to private schools to improve on life-long learning. We have started doing some, and others are undergoing change, and we hope the lessons learnt here can be applied elsewhere in the public schools in delivering effective learning outcomes,” he stated.

Dr. Mattew Opoku Prempeh also noted that, the visit aimed at getting closer to a well-functioning school that is safe and conducive to teaching and learning.

“So I was invited to come and have a feel of what they do here. It is the aspiration of every public school, and I hope that from what we’ve learnt here, will be incorporated in the public school system,” he stated.

Dr. Mattew Opoku Prempeh indicated that, there is still room for improvement in the public system through a collaboration with private schools.

“We looked at the environment, we talked about the teaching, students, curriculum, teacher training and it was illuminating to see them using the International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge Programmes. There is no one true way in education and you can see students doing a lot of well integrated projects. They also go out into the community to explore and have a feel of how the things they learn translate in the community,” he posited.

The Minister was hosted by the School Management team including: Dr. Fatma Odaymat, the Director; Nouhad Kalmoni, Board Member, and Nazem Karroum of Samir Engineering, a member of the School Community.

The Director of Al-Rayan International School, Dr. Fatma Odaymat, said they were honoured to receive the Minister of Education who demonstrated his preparedness to bring total reform in the public school system.

According to her, ARIS personalizes learning for students from 46 nationalities with different levels of English abilities.

“We have very strong English programs for such students to fill up the gaps. We also have a very strong special educational needs department for kids with both physical and developmental needs. We are an all-inclusive school so we have students from different backgrounds and needs being mainstreamed in the same classroom,” the director stressed.

“We really recommend that programme and we are very happy to see that the Minister wanted to incorporate it into the public school system,” she intimated.

Dr. Fatma Odaymat noted that Ghana also needs to provide training for teachers to build their capacity on how to use the Jolly Phonics programme and other modern teaching and learning strategies.

According to her, the school has a strong collaboration with Samsung where they do a lot of IT integration to ensure that students become independent life-long learners. She said students are allowed to take full responsibility of their own learning to become active participants in the teaching and learning process and also in school’s decision making.

“At age 5, we are able to get kids to do active projects which reflect very much on everything they are learning, what they want to do and to change in the school, classroom and community,” Dr. Fatma intimated.

She indicated that knowledge and education has no sense or meaning if students are not able to utilize that knowledge for something fruitful in their lives and improve communities.

The School’S Director said they are looking forward to having a teacher training academy using their own teachers who are IB and Cambridge trained to support schools that need such support.

She added that they are seeking to develop a Center for Education Research which is geared towards informing policy changes and developing strong training programs that will help students to become ready for the fast-changing world.

“We cannot be doing what we did 20 years ago. Ghana is capable of raising the standards just as we do every day because we are a Ghanaian based school with teachers from Ghana and so the question is why not? Anybody can do it because if there is a will there is a way, and I can see that the Minister has the same mindset of trying to make education a life-long learning process that is more affordable, accessible and of high quality,” she posited.

Dr. Fatma Odaymat said they believe in the concept of cooperation and collaboration, as their students are thought how to work as a team.

She said they would thus want to see that replicated in the community between the ministry and the school.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to him, the government’s move is without recourse to Parliament, although the house originally approved the construction of two campuses for the school at Donkorkrom and Somanya.

[contextly_sidebar id=”MKLx8pKbrSMWTEqR7DKBpsDrvFbS2Q7F”]The construction of the University was part of the Mahama administration’s vision to ensure each region in the country had a public university.

The Education Minister told Parliament that the construction of the proposed Somanya Campus of the University would begin next month, but did not give details about the construction of the second campus.

But according to the North Tongu MP, the government had changed the original plan of a Donkorkrom campus to Kyebi, the hometown of President Akufo-Addo.

Speaking in an interview with Citi News, the former deputy Education Minister said, “the program which Parliament had already approved was that there will be two main campuses, the Somanya campus and the Donkorkrom campus in the Affram Plains area. The information I have, which is unimpeachable, credible, is that, this government has changed the second campus from Donkorkrom in Afram Plains to Bunso in Kyebi, and that is why they did not want to answer the question. The facility that this house approved in 2016 has to do with funding for two campuses, there is reasonable proximity.”

He said although he tried the seek clarification from the Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh on the matter, the former did not give details about the development, noting that “they know what they have done, which they are hiding from the people of this country,” hence the failure to disclose the move.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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She said this after inspecting some abandoned school projects in the Cape Coast North Constituency on Monday.

Mrs Ayisi said it is unclear why some of the school blocks which have been completed some years back, were left unused and were deteriorating.

The inspection, was as as a result of an observation she made during the 2016 campaign period which gave her the opportunity to identify such projects in order to find means to complete them.

Mrs Ayisi has inspected four of the abandoned schools including a six unit classroom block at Efutu Kokwado, which was completed three years ago, but is still not in use, Bessakrom, Ebubonko and Nkanfua.

In spite of a constitutional provision that successive governments shall continue to execute projects and programmes commenced by the previous administration, it was not being adhered to.

“It looks like we have not been doing the right thing over the years so it is difficult to know which organisation is responsible for which project. In most cases the assemblies do not even know that a project is going on in their jurisdiction and this is wrong,” she said.

Mrs Ayisi said the Ministry was determined to embark on accelerated programmes to complete all abandoned school projects by the next academic year.

The Ministry would liaise with the assemblies to ensure the continuity of all projects to facilitate the development process of the country and implored all stakeholders to provide the needed support.

Going forward, she said, all relevant stakeholders must be briefed on projects in their communities to ensure continuity even after a change of Government so that the resources invested would not go waste.

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Source: GNA

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This is according to Education Minister, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, who has said the government has identified about 8,000 basic schools that need urgent refurbishment.

Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, the Minister said the schools identified had structures that threatened the lives of pupils.

[contextly_sidebar id=”rYYf5LvNvnSGM7Y4Sy5hObCO2bHow7js”]“The ministry is aware of the deplorable state of a number of school buildings across the country. We have indented 8,208 schools that need intervention. The government is seeking funds to start a serious rehabilitation and renovation of these structures. We’ve done a comprehensive review of these structures and we need a massive injection of funds,” Matthew Opoku Premepeh said.

He noted that government was working assiduously to source the funds for work to commence immediately. He added that the government was working with the support of GETFund to undertake the project.

His comments were in response to a statement made on the floor of the house about a series of structural collapses of old basic schools in the country.

In April 2017, a six-unit pavilion of the Nkurankan Presby Primary School at Nkurankan in the Eastern Region collapsed, injuring five women.

The incident occurred after a downpour pulled down the 70-year old dilapidated school building.

A similar incident occurred in February when 6 pupils of Breman Gyamra Methodist Kindergarten School died after their dilapidated classroom collapsed.

‘GES to audit all school buildings’

Following the accidents, the Ghana Education Service ordered District Education Directors to audit all school buildings to gather information about their current states for the necessary action to be taken by the minister.

The Public Relations Officer of the GES, Reverend Jonathan Bettey, told Citi News his outfit will ensure all students learn in a safe environment.

“That was the order the Director-General of Ghana Education Service gave out to all the  District Directors and Regional Directors. He personally requested that they should liaise with the District Assemblies because education is a collective responsibility of all stakeholders not only Ghana Education Service. They should liaise with the District Assemblies, they have technical officers who are the planning officers who can help them get all the necessary information that we need to be communicated  to the Minister in charge for him to take an action on these issues.”

“In actual fact, all indications show that, according to the Minister, we are taking stock of all our buildings and statistics of all things to make sure that this does not happen to any community in the country.”

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By: Jonas Nyabor & Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Dr. Opoku Prempeh, as he rubbished the claims, also vowed to resign if there is any proof of such claims.

“The person who alleges I said it should prove it. If he proves it, I will resign as a minister. I haven’t said that anywhere. It is the duty of our regulators and the Ghana Education Service who should drive standards and performance in schools,” he said.

Dr. Opoku Prempeh was addressing heads of high schools in Kumasi, where he reportedly said they would have to justify their continued stay in their positions to the Ghana Education Service (GES) if they superintend poor examination results.

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), for instance, expressed its displeasure with the comments which it considered as a threat.

GES backs Education Minister

But the Ghana Education Service (GES) , rose to the defence of the Minister of Education saying his comments, which was a charge to headteachers in Kumasi, were wrongly misconstrued as threats.

In an interview with Citi News, the Public Affairs Officer of the GES, Reverend Jonathan Bettey, said “the Minister for Education was addressing the heads and teachers involved, especially teachers who under-performed, and he did not use the word sack. The GES has also not decided to sack any of our teachers on that issue.”

Rev. Bettey explained further that, the Education Minister’s plans were tied to the New Patriotic Party government’s plans to improve the working conditions of teachers.

“He was saying that there wouldn’t be any justification for any of our headmasters who would not perform if all they need are given them, because the president promised to motivate our teachers.”

“The minister will not order a sack and one will be sacked. The order must pass through a lot of processes to prove that this person deserves to be sacked.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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After three years of its implementation, the rate of teacher absenteeism has declined from 27 per cent in 2012 to seven per cent in 2016.

Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, Minister of Education, who announced this in Accra said, the Ministry would continue to champion the course until the rate of teacher absenteeism is brought to zero.

She said after she and her team had initiated surprise visits to countless schools throughout the country, the National Inspectorate Board (NIB) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) were resourced to intensify both external and internal monitoring in basic schools, among many other functions.

She, therefore, commended various stakeholders including teachers, the teacher unions, traditional authorities, district education officers, and the parents who supported the Ministry to achieve the result.

“I wish to thank everyone for their cooperation which has helped improve the image of our cherished profession,” she added.

On In-Service Education and Training Programme, the Minister said, in the four-year period, a total of 12,085 Mathematics and 2,387 Science teachers across the country were trained.

Prof Opoku-Agyemang said in addition, 5,626 non-core subject teachers and 5,923 Heads from Public Basic Schools in the 75 deprived districts and low-performing schools (public and private) also received training.

“In our effort to accelerate ICT education at the basic education level, 81,000 basic school teachers have been trained since 2013 to enable them acquire the requisite skills in the use of ICT to facilitate teaching and learning.

“A total number of 54,500 Laptops were procured and distributed to basic school teachers, and 60,000 laptop computers were distributed to public basic schools across the country,” she said.

The Minister said in order to strengthen governance of educational institutions to improve efficiency of education service delivery, the Ministry had over the past two years embarked on a process to review the legal and regulatory framework of some of its agencies.

To date, three bills, namely, Technical University Act, 2016 (Act 992); University of Environment and Sustainable Development Act, 2015 (Act 898), and Chartered Institute of Taxation Act, 2016 (Act 916) have been passed into Acts of parliament and accented by the President.

Prof Opoku-Agyemang announced that Tertiary Education Research Fund Bill had also been approved by Cabinet and is currently before Parliament for Consideration while Ghana Book Development Council Bill was currently at the Attorney General’s Department.

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Source: GNA

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