The office of former Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has issued a strong rebuttal to what it describes as “deliberate historical distortions” contained in a recent pro-Adutwum publication that sought to credit Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum with major national education reforms.

In a firm statement titled “A Necessary Correction,” Dr Prempeh’s camp accuses Team Adutwum of misrepresenting timelines, appropriating policy achievements, and overlooking the foundational work executed under the first Akufo-Addo administration.

ESP 2018–2030: “It is not his strategic plan”

A major point of contention is the claim that the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2018–2030 is Dr Adutwum’s creation.

The rebuttal sharply refutes this, outlining the actual chronology:

Work on the ESP began in 2016.

It was completed and launched for implementation in 2018.

The ESP is a sector-wide national development blueprint, developed under Dr Prempeh’s leadership during his tenure from 2017 to 2021.

The statement calls attempts to brand the ESP as a personal achievement of Dr. Adutwum “a clear effort to rewrite Ghana’s educational history.”

Free SHS: The timeline is not up for debate

Dr Prempeh’s office also takes issue with suggestions that Dr Adutwum played a central role in the rollout of Free Senior High School.

According to the rebuttal:

Free SHS was launched in September 2017.

The first Free SHS cohort completed WASSCE in 2020.

Dr Adutwum had not yet been approved by Parliament as Deputy Minister when the budget funding Free SHS was read in March 2017.

The statement underscores that Free SHS was conceptualised, designed, costed, funded and rolled out under Dr Prempeh, making any attempt to reassign credit both misleading and historically inaccurate.

“Exaggeration has limits; Facts do not”

The rebuttal ends with a strong caution against political revisionism, “Political campaigns must not distort the contributions of those who delivered these reforms. Ghana’s education history must be told truthfully, without exaggeration or selective memory.”

The statement stresses that credit for national reforms must be assigned accurately to protect the integrity of the sector’s historical record.