Prioritise Creative Arts education – RELCASSOBV Ghana

RELCASSOBV Ghana, a nongovernmental organisation based in Wa, has supplied 100 assorted books to management of the Upper West Regional Library with a call on government to prioritise creative arts education to boost job creation.

The organisation believes granting top priority to Creative Arts Education in the country would unearth many hidden talents of the youth and help create vast employment opportunities for those without jobs.

The RELCASSOBV (Rescue to Effective Learning through Creative Applications and Support for Suffering Orphans and Victims of Broken home) with Wiyaala Foundation made the donation to the Library.

Speaking during the presentation, Dr Prosper B. Laari, the Board Chairman of RELCASSOBV said government should pump more resources into Creative Arts Education and make it a top priority for job creation.

“The Asian Tigers, most especially Singapore, used arts as one of their strong pillars to transform their nations,” he said, but the subject cannot be taught and learnt effectively in Ghana largely due to shortage of teaching and learning materials.

Dr Laari who is also a senior lecturer at the University for Development campus in Wa said basic school teachers and pupils require relevant resources to facilitate the teaching and learning of Creative Arts but do not have, hence the NGO’s gesture to assist the regional library with the materials.

He said successive administrations have played vital roles in revamping Ministry of Tourism and Creative Art industry but there had been “no direct connection” between the Ministry and Ghana Education Service.

The situation has not encouraged the fashioning out of the right policies and programmes to propel stronger growth and development in the field of arts education.

In a speech read on his behalf, the Upper West Regional Minister Dr Hafiz Bin-Salih said formal education was central to the achievement of government’s development aspirations.

Hence, he said the government was investing heavily in infrastructural development and pursuing reforms in the educational sector for accelerated economic growth.

He assured stakeholders that the provision of infrastructure would not compromise motivation for teachers and supply of teaching and learning resources necessary for academic work.

There would also be effective mechanism for supervision at all levels of the education structure to ensure teachers gave off their best.

He said falling standards of education in the region posed a grave challenge and called for collaborative efforts to improve performance in basic and second circle institutions.

Music icon and Founder of Wiyaala Foundation, Ms Noellla Wiyaala, called for a review Ghana’s educational curricular to place more emphasize on Creative Arts, Vocational and Technical subjects.

According to her, the western world has advanced in music and film acting through what is being practised in schools right from infancy to adulthood but the story here in Ghana is different.

She said had it not been because some expensive private schools have Creative Arts facilities, talented arts children would have been denied the opportunity to showcase their worth, however, financial challenges put many off.

Sharing her experiences, she said in Europe, Creative Arts and Information and Communication Technology are compulsory and opportunities are given to children to practise music at studios or operate computers in laboratories but unfortunately in Ghana little or no attention is given to the two subjects.