Professor urges govt to de-politicize education

Takoradi, March 3 -GNA-Professor Hubert Quist, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Cape Coast (UCC), on Thursday said the government should de-politicise education and educational issues and adopt measures to enable the country to achieve high educational standards.

He was speaking at a symposium organized by the Western Regional National Association of Retired Educationists (NARED) to commemorate the country's 50th independence anniversary at Takoradi. The symposium was under the theme; "Standard of Education Since Independence And the Way Forward".

Professor Quist said the country has for a long time politicized education and educational matters and issues at the expense of standards.

He said, "We have also paid lip-service to the implementation of relevant and development oriented education".

Professor Quist said Kwame Nkrumah, the country's first President took educational matters seriously and this is evidenced by his commitment to free compulsory universal education, increased access to secondary education through the schools established by his Ghana Education Trust.

Professor Quist said the GETFund should be used to provide infrastructure to all schools at all levels that do not have the basic infrastructure.

He said adequate and standard infrastructure is critical to the successful conduct of any educational enterprise. He said, "We should not play politics with this" adding, "Adequate infrastructure that is standard would greatly improve upon and correct the distortions in student-teacher ratios, reduce class sizes and arrest the situation of overcrowding in classrooms". Professor Quist said accomplished educationists should be appointed as Ministers of Education instead of appointing any person for that position.

He said, "As a country we need to take the 85 government on and ensure that its proclaimed commitment to quality human resource development and capacity building is adhered to". Other speakers were Mrs Cecilia Harry Quaye, Principal of Holy Child College, Takoradi and Efo Kojo Mawugbe, Artistic Director of the National Theatre. 03 March 07