Government urged to establish autonomous national commission on education

Accra, May 31, GNA - Mr Kwesi Ofei Ofosu-Apea, Director of RIIS Memorial School, has called on government to establish an autonomous non-partisan national commission on education to manage issues concerning the improvement of the educational sector.

He said this would ensure stability in the sector, as well as preven t frequent reforms and reviews whenever there was a change of government. He said education was very important, adding it should not take a change of government to change its focus and direction to suit the politi cal convenience of the government of the day.

Mr Ofosu-Apea made the call on Monday when he announced a four-month long programme spanning from June to September, this year, to celebrate t he silver jubilee of the founding of RIIS Memorial School at its Dansoman campus in Accra. Activities lined up for the celebration include a float/procession, literary/arts festival, home coming/family day, and social responsibility/clean-up exercise, career guidance day, medical screening/blood donation, founders' durbar/graduation and thanksgiving service.

The celebration, themed: "The youth at the threshold of a very challenging future", is meant among other things to enable old students t o fraternise with the current students and share their experiences with, as well as educate them on career opportunities to ginger them up to work ha rd to achieve set targets. He said such a commission should be independent and permanent to ena ble it to run education as it should be, rather than continue to make all sor ts of changes based on political considerations.

He said since independence, there had been series of educational reforms, and even though some were good and in the right direction, the frequency was alarming, adding that something must be done to stop the politicisation of the sector.

Mr Ofosu-Apea also called on government not to view private educatio n providers as competitors but rather partners in education delivery and assist them where necessary, to ensure that a greater percentage of the citizenry had access to quality education. On the 25th Anniversary celebration of the school, he said it had achieved a lot over the period, with most of its products becoming respec ted citizens contributing in various areas such as health, economy, communication, law, science, the arts and entertainment among others, towards national development.

He said as educationists, "we have the responsibility to direct the youth to remain focused because the years in which we are now are very trying years, with lots of challenges and opportunities. "That is why we want to take advantage of our 25th Anniversary to educate children and the youth, who face distractions in life, to be very careful in whatever they do so they do not go astray and indulge in acts such as 'sakawa' and other vices", he said.

Mr Ofosu-Apea said the school believed in dynamism and passion for t he development of the full potential of its students, adding this made it to continuously emerge among the top 100 high performing schools at the Basi c Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the country. He said it was the goal of the school to further raise the quality of education and make it more affordable to deprived families, adding "we believe that education should not be a privilege for only the rich in society. "That is why 18 per cent of our over 600 student population is on full-time and part scholarships" he said. He paid glowing tribute to individuals including Mr Ben Ofosu-Apea, Founder, Mr John Myles Mills and Mr Victor Bekoe, both former Headmasters , Mrs Rose Ofosu-Apea, a former Headmistress and Mr George Amet, Chairman o f the school's Parent Teacher Association, for the invaluable service they rendered to the school. RIIS Memorial School, located at Dansoman in Accra, was established in 1985.