Community brainstorms to improve education

Jasikan, Dec. 9, GNA - The Jasikan District Community Schools Alliance in conjunction with Government Accountability Improve Trust (GAIT) on Tuesday held an educational forum in Jasikan to brainstorm on how to improve the quality of education in the district.

The forum was sponsored by USAID as part o its support towards the quality improvement in basic schools.

The two-day programme brought together members of school management committees, parent teachers association, assembly members and unit committee members from 19 communities in the district.

Speaking at the forum, Mr Akwasi Addae Boahene, Community School Alliance Programme Director said the aim of the forum was bring together the core of the human resource in the district to tackle the decline of academic performance in the district.

"All of us here should make it a point to improve education in the district since we have nothing apart from our human resource," he said.

He urged parents to support their children to attain higher position than what they have attained.

"A community or society that cannot make their children higher than themselves is a dying community," Mr Addae Boahene added.

Mr Martin Akotey, the District Co-ordinator of the Co-operative League of the United States of America (CLUSA) enumerated factors, which contributed to the fast decline of academic performance in the district since the 1980s.

He mentioned, among others, the breakdown of discipline among teachers and pupils, take over of schools from churches and ineffective supervision of teachers.

He therefore, called on the participants to team up and find ways and means to solve the nagging problems in their quest to raise the performance of their children.

In a speech read on his behalf, Mr John Kwasi Hobenu, Jasikan District Director of Education said it was an irony that even though the Ghana Education Service was providing infrastructure and logistics to improve the delivery of education in the country the standard of education continue to decline.

He noted that it has been realised that most school management committees have seized to exist leaving teachers and pupils to behave as they like.

He entreated parents to give their children the necessary support to entice them to take their education very seriously.

In a welcoming address the District Chief Executive, Mr Solomon Kwame Donkor expressed concern over the decline of the academic standard in the district and pledged the assembly's readiness to support any programmes aimed at improvement of the standard of education in the district.

He said the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme was on course and urged parents to ensure that children of school-going age were in the classroom.