Stakeholders at a colloquium of School for Life have called on the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to lead the crusade in ensuring bottom-up change in education, by involving all stakeholders, comprising civil society groups, parents, children, traditional rulers, and grassroots people in policy formulation and implementation.
Policies, they said, should be enforced and systems made to work so that the huge sums of money put into education will yield the desired dividends.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) was urged to involve traditional rulers in monitoring learning outcomes in schools within their localities, stimulating dialogue for the harmonisation and re-alignment of resources by the donor community to areas where they are most needed.
This was contained in a communique issued at the end of the colloquium which was part of SfL’s 20th anniversary celebration underscored the need to intensify oral training at the Basic Level with emphasis on the Mother Tongue.
It also called for re-assessment of the role of technology in Ghana’s educational system to achieve the country’s dream of a technology-driven economy as well as redesigning and enforcing basic level education that builds learners’ ability in numeracy, literacy and basic life skills.
The stakeholders recommended that, large numbers of students complete primary education without attaining functional literacy, also noting that there are inadequate technical schools, the lack of teachers in deprived communities, and poorly equipped workshops.
Community structures such as traditional Leaders, assembly persons and PTAs/SMCs should participate in monitoring schools to augment the work of the Circuit Supervisors and to promote community ownership of the schools, the stakeholders further recommended.
Media collaboration was identified as one way of ensuring effective monitoring of educational delivery in the country. Government should prioritise basic education and allocate more resources to promote quality education at the basic level.
The Teachers’ Unions (GNAT/NAGRAT) should extend their focus beyond teacher welfare to take up issues for professional standards and ethics. Libraries should be stocked to meet the current needs of students and the general public.
Teachers’ resource centres should be revitalised to serve their purpose, for example, research into modern teaching methodologies, development of TLMs and providing in-service training to teachers.
Government of Ghana (GOG) should, among other changes, review the curriculum of teacher training to bridge the gap between theory and practice, provide quality material and financial resources, ensure accountability in the management of available resources as well as ensure effective collaboration of GES/MOE, CSOs and other Education Stakeholders in pursuance of outlined objectives.
