The Convention People’s Party (CPP) has challenged Nana Akuffo Addo to offer credible proposals for solving Ghana’s education crisis.

speaking on Maurine Donkor’s News Review show - Hot Digital Radio, over the weekend, the CPP‘s UK and Ireland Chairman Nii Armah Akomfrah said - “If Nana Akuffo Addo says he is concerned about the 100,000 to 200,000 of our children who are thrown onto the streets by our school system every year without either the skills for work or a chance to continue their education, then he must stop supporting the current education system and boldly offer a solution to the education crisis in our country”

Mr Akomfrah said that since the NPP came to office over 100,000 teenagers have been thrown out of our education system each year, a staggering total of 1,000,343 young lives are thus out on the streets without a future, failed by the state. He said Ghana is probably the only country where the state conspires to terminate the education/futures of its children. Something needs to be done Mr Akomfrah said, adding that the CPP is offering bold solutions to end the crisis. He further highlighted that in his address to the TUC Nana Akuffo Addo seem to blame teachers for the problem when he said - “To redress this, we must improve teacher training….” Nana Akuffo-Addo had also said that “For our child to succeed, he must get a strong foundation in maths, science, accounting and technology”, and pledged that “I will make Senior High School Education Free and accessible to all to give all our children a reasonable chance for higher education”, that he will “invest in trade schools so that children who lack the academic wherewithal to enter tertiary institutions can learn trades like masonry, carpentry etc…... “

What Nana Akuffo Addo did not say is that BECE is a problem, and a system which has failed over 1 million of our children during the NPP years is not working.

The CPP says that Nana Akuffo Addo’s position must be viewed against the CPP’s manifesto commitments:

• seeking to abolish the BECE to end the terminal nature of our current education system,

• An Accelerated Education Sector Investment Programme (AESIP)

• Reduce Income Taxes for Teachers

• Introduction of Electronic Libraries

• Make Secondary Schools part of Basic Education and Free

• Make Vocational and Technical Education mostly post secondary to ensure that young people going to vocational and technical schools are adequately prepared academically.

• Setting up Regional Campuses for all State Universities

• Etc.

The CPP believes that its plans offer the solution needed to stop over 100,000 of our children being thrown out of our education system in their early teens, and effectively ending their futures. The Party challenged Nana Akuffo on his blame on teachers – saying “Teacher Training is not the problem, the current system and Nana Akuffo Addo offers no meaningful solution to the education crisis in our country. The CPP said further that Nana Akuffo Addo’s assertion to the TUC that “Today, we live in a world where the child being educated in Kumasi must see as his or her competitor the child born about the same time in Kuala Lumpur” is very hollow if 40 to 50% of our youngsters fail to get to Senior High School and their lives are ended in their early teens.

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana.

Communications Directorate – www.cppuk.org info@cppuk.org cppyouth@gmail.com