FOCUS ON GHANA

 

SPECIAL FOCUS ON GHANA

Mahama: Changing Lives? Transforming Ghana?

President John Dramani Mahama (as Vice President )stepped into the saddle in 2010 when his erstwhile boss President John Atta Mills passed on. With that he became the 4th John in a row (After John Jerry Rawlings, John Kuffour and John Atta Mills), to lead the emerging West African nation of estimated 25million people. Taking the reigns of power at a time of global economic melt down has not been quite easy, but he has managed to swim above the murky waters.   Surviving a close electoral battle with his major rival Nana Akufo Addo in 2012 has not only made him tougher but more strategic and more determined to deliver on his promises to the people of Ghana in all priority areas. Despite criticism from some quarters and vehement castigations from the main opposition, it is quite pertinent to note that Ghana has really changed relatively positively in the past four years of Mahama’s tenure, though there is still work to be done.

There are quite a wide range of criteria for measuring the transformation indices of a nation at any given time, Definitely, infrastructural development, improvement in educational standards, rural development through efforts which encourage small and micro entrepreneurship, are some of these.  These are definitely some of the areas that the Mahama administration has taken some very visible strides in the fulfillment of the mandate given it by the Ghanaian people.

Particularly outstanding is the massive investments in the educational sector that has invariably reengineered an unprecedented turn around in the hitherto parlous educational standard in the country a few years back. The administration remarkable efforts in this sector is a clear indication of a genuine desire to lay a formidable foundation for a nation that was gradually losing the quest for educating its youth due to poverty in some cases and the  inexplicable lure of fast money amongst some youth; going by recent researches.

With the hindsight that a country which neglects education is definitely headed for the rocks, the administration’s prioritization of education must be applauded. 

To further emphasize the importance of   the giant strides in this sector in Ghana, it is pertinent to reflect on the score card presented by President John Mahama to the people of Ghana at the Parliament when he delivered his state of the nation address 2016, detailing his administration’s achievements in the improvement of education in Ghana.

  “I would like to show how we are changing lives. And what a better place to start than with education, which has been proven to be the single most effective way not only to changea single life, but other lives that surround it. Education can bAreak cycles of poverty and abuse. Education is the key that can unlock, for children, worlds into which their parents could not enter; worlds they never even knew existed. During this term, my first term as President, we have consciously developed strategies and made interventions to raise the quality of education by emphasising its relevance,improving access, and working to eliminate gender discrimination and inequality. We have also worked to better train and equip our teachers.

BASIC EDUCATION

Ghana has been commended by the United Nations for meeting the target of theMillennium Development Goal (MDG) on achieving universal primary education withgender parity. Despite that achievement, there are still a significant number of school-agechildren that are not enrolled. These children are now being targeted under the Compulsory Basic Education (CBE)programme of the Ministry of Education. In the last year, a total of 54,800 out of schoolchildren in four regions have been enrolled into schools. These are 54,800 children whowould not have received an education. These are 54,800 children whose lives will now have much different outcomes as a result of this programme.Other important social interventions that are being implemented in the educational sector include the issuance of free supplies such as uniforms, sandals and textbooks.

In June 2015, I launched the free school sandals programme which saw the start of the distribution of 10,000 Kumasi Shoe Factory Made-in-Ghana leather sandals to school children in need across the nation.A number of students would have struggled without the basic necessities with which to attend school - students like Mohammed Awabu of Moglaa JHS in the Savelugu District of the Northern Region who received free sandals; or David Aminayire of Nayagenia JHS, Kassena-Nankana Municipal in the Upper East Region who received free uniform, free exercise books and textbooks. Last year, I insisted that the Ministry of Education must ensure that all textbooks areprinted in Ghana. This is on course. In fact, I would like to acknowledge the statement of gratitude received from the Ghana Printers and Paper Converters Association, led by Mr.James Appiah-Berko. I would especially like to take note of their indication that this intervention will help create1,400 new direct jobs. Better still, that is 1,400 new direct jobs in Ghanaian businesses.

In our determination to improve quality education, we have also introduced two newprogrammes - the Teacher Professional Development Initiative and the Provision of Teaching and Learning Materials programme.The Teacher Professional Development initiative aims to achieve a target of 95% trainedteachers at the basic level by 2020 as set out in the Education Strategic Plan (ESP). TheProvision of Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs) programme has seen to the distribution of teaching and learning materials to 10,924 basic schools. In addition, 30,000 teachers were trained in ICT under the Basic School Computerisation Programme, bringing the total number of teachers trained under the programme to 50,000.

SECONDARY EDUCATION

Secondary education was plagued with a number of challenges, notably lack of access,leading to a poor transition rate from JHS to SHS. We are vigorously confronting these challenges. Under our programme to establish 200 Senior High Schools, I can report that 123 are currently being constructed. But permit me to place this project in a broader perspective.

The first secondary school was established in Ghana 140 years ago, in 1876. Between that date and 2012, the number of public secondary schools established was 526. The 123 schools that are being implemented right now will create more than 200,000 new places in the system, thus making the Community Day Schools Intervention the biggest ever expansion programme in the entire history of secondary education in Ghana.

It is because of this programme that 16-year-old Apim Shulamite is now the Assistant School Prefect of the Atta Mills Community Day School in Otuam. After completing JHS, Apim, who once dreamt of becoming a nurse, had to stay home for a year due to lack of access to a secondary school. Apim's parents are settlers from Somanya. Her father is a taxi driver and her mother sells second-hand clothing. During the year that she stayed at home, Apim sold waakye and worked in a chop bar.

Because of the Community Day Schools intervention, students like Apim are able to gofrom limited prospects to the fulfilment of personal dreams that ultimately benefit the entire nation. Additionally, under the Secondary  school. Apim's parents are settlers from Somanya. Her father is a taxi driver and her mother sells second-hand clothing. During the year that she stayed at home, Apim sold waakye and worked in a chop bar.

Because of the Community Day Schools intervention, students like Apim are able to go from limited prospects to the fulfilment of personal dreams that ultimately benefit the entire nation. Additionally, under the Secondary Education Improvement Programme (SEIP), 10,400 students benefitted from scholarships. 60% of the beneficiaries are young women, like Gertrude Ahyia Yeboah, who is currently a student at St. Augustine's SHS in Bogoso in the Western Region.

A  critical assessment of Ghana’s educational sector over the past years, when juxtaposed with the some of the accounts rendered in the state of the nation address, leaves one in no doubt concerning the sincerity of purpose and genuine intentions of Mr. Mahama and his team towards  the total revamping of the sector.

The massive efforts the Mahama administration has put in the educational sector by way of  investments in awesome infrastructural developments, improvement of tutor quality, access to education for the poorest of the poor through provision of some essentials like text books, exercise books, uniforms and sandals ( a situation that is hard for most urban dwelling critics to comprehend ) and free tuition are clear indices.

The administration’s remarkable strides in the quest to give Ghana’s education a new, befitting, world class outlook is so vast that only a fraction is captured in the following 8- page spotlight  titled-

GHANA’S EDUCATION MAKES PROGRESS - NEW FACE OF EDUCATION.

In all fairness, the advances in this sector must be commended as the foundation for a more progressive, visionary and objective Ghana has been laid by this quest to inspire a new generation of forward looking Ghanaians through provisions of globally accepted educational standards.