Let the Ministry of Education stand alone-Minority

Accra, July 3,GNA- The Minority group in Parliament on Thursday appealed to President John Agyekum Kufuor to let the Ministry of Education stand alone to afford it the focus of addressing serious problems in the sector. It suggested the appointment of a full Minister with three deputies to be in charge of Pre-tertiary, Tertiary and Vocational and Technical Education.

Mr Kosi Kedem, Minority Spokesman on Education, told a press conference at Parliament House that: "There appears to be a total confusion and darkness at the new Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. "The unprecedented huge number of six ministers appears confused and dazed by the challenges that education has posed." He said just before the merger, the Ministry of Youth and Sports was in a state of stupor, "poorly funded and plagued with serious in-fighting, Education on the other hand has over the years grown into an empire with a huge annual budget running into trillions of cedis."

The Ranking Member said even in the past when there were fewer Primary, Secondary and Tertiary schools and good administrators at the Youth and Sport Ministry, which was well-funded, these two ministries could not be administered together for long. "At any rate the conditions under which these two Ministries operated together in the past have completely changed." He said by the year 2000, there were 2.3 million pupils in 12031 primary schools, 771,568 pupils in 6,004 JSS and 465 schools with a population of 266,033 in the second cycle. He said the Polytechnics had 12,212 students, while the Universities had a student population of 31,171.

The Member said the Ministry of Education had jurisdiction over IPS, National Service Secretariat, Ghana Library Board, among others. "As if that were not enough, the Ministry had to contend with powerful Unions like the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) and others." He criticised the statement made by the Minister of State In-charge of Tertiary Education, that called for a debate on the full cost recovery of Tertiary Education.

Mr Kedem asked Miss Elizabeth Ohene, to settle down, "study the educational terrain reasonably well and assess the educational aspirations of Ghanaians before venturing out into the minefield of education." He said government's seemingly inaction on the report of the Presidential Commission on Educational Reforms had led to poor public opinion on its intentions for the development of education. "The idea of ministers going round schools just to shake hands with pupils and play 'ampe' with them is just a publicity stunt which will in no way help solve the problems of Education."