Former Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, has disclosed that a breakdown in communication and weak collaboration with technical officers were among the biggest challenges that hindered former education minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum, in implementing key programs.

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In an interview on Channel One TV and monitored by GhanaWeb on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, he explained that the education ministry has a well-structured system of policy advisers and implementing agencies such as the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), and the National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NaSIA), who are responsible for guiding ministers in decision-making.

"The thing is that, whether you are the best education person or have experience from elsewhere, when you are made a minister of education, you have a number of technical people that you have to work with.

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"Within the ministry, you have the chief technical officer who is the chief director. You have directories within the ministry that do a lot of policy advising for a minister. Then you have implementing agencies like the GES, you have GTEC, you have NaSIA, you have NaCCA that provides technical support. Now, it is very, very critical that as a minister of education, regardless of what you think you know, that you work with the technical people who are on the ground," he noted.

According to him, Dr Adutwum’s belief that his background in education was sufficient sometimes, created gaps in policy execution.

“Regardless of who you are, you need to be able to work with the people on the ground who understand the work,” Dr Tandoh said.

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He rejected claims that technocrats deliberately undermined the minister, stressing that public servants are duty-bound to provide technical support.

“One of the key rules of being a public servant or civil servant is that you never deny your technical skills to the political leadership of the day. But the political leadership must also avail itself to technical advice. If it does not, then it creates a situation where you just follow marching orders,” he added.

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