General News of Saturday, 21 November 2015

Source: GNA

Provide schools with vital materials to raise performance

Professor Stephen Adei Professor Stephen Adei

Former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei, has called for the supply of vital teaching and learning materials to schools to raise performance.

He said the focus should not only be on the construction of structures but the provision of adequate logistics to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

He was speaking at the launch of a project to promote reading among school children in the Adansi North District.

It is being spearheaded by the district education directorate and the goal is to help equip them with reading skills, tackle absenteeism and teenage pregnancy.

Prof Adei said it was important, especially for parliamentarians to channel substantial part of their share of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) into the development of education.

He also reminded classroom teachers to show commitment and passion for the job by making effective use of the “instructional hours”.

He described as completely unacceptable the situation, where many in the public schools were under-performing and said that needed to radically change.

The former Rector noted that for this to happen, the Ghana Education Service (GES), necessarily would have to strengthen supervision in the schools.

He spoke of the need for parents and other stakeholders to also combine their efforts to ensure that children did not only enroll in school but retained.

Prof Adei used the occasion to counsel young girls to concentrate on their books and work hard to live their dreams.

They should resist bad peer pressure influence, sexual adventurism and other reprehensible social vices likely to ruin their future.

Mr. Paul Antwi Oppong, the District Director of Education, complained about the disturbing rate at which, school girls were getting pregnant in the area.

He said everything must be done to give more protection, especially to the adolescent girl and aid them to acquire academic careers.