Catholic Bishop urges government to deepen State-Church partnership in education

The Catholic Bishop of Wa, The Most Reverend Paul Bemile, has called on the Government to deepen and strengthen State-Church partnership in education service delivery by revisiting the educational ordinance of 1887

The ordinance endorses the principle that education could be better enhanced when religious bodies are supported financially in the building and management of their schools.

This principle, he stated, should be considered alongside Act 778 of 2008 on education, which directs the Minister of Education to ensure that effective decentralization of executive responsibility for the provision and management of basic and second-cycle institutions should rest with the District Assemblies.

Bishop Bemile made these remarks at a forum on state-church partnership on education at Wa, organized by the National Catholic Secretariat with the collaboration of STAR-Ghana, an NGO.

The forum which had the theme, “Government and Church Partnership towards Enhancing Education Service Delivery and Governance” was attended by District Education directors, Unit Managers of Education and retired educationists in the Upper West region.

Bishop Bemile warned that any Government which would not permit religious bodies to run and manage their educational institutions would fail Ghanaians because the people wanted to be religious and looked not only to the acquisition of knowledge and achievements but above all, to God for their blessings.

He observed that the removal of Religious and Moral Education from the school curriculum until former President John Kufuor intervened to reverse the decision could be faulted on Global Ethics which was being championed by the United Nations through UNESCO.

Global Ethics propagates the idea that the problems of humanity have become global and therefore require not only global solutions but also global values.

Bishop Bemile made it clear that the “so called quality education" advocated by experts steeped in global ethics was nothing other than a programme which sought to impoverish rich cultures which had enabled people to have a fundamental fear of God and His ways.

“A global ethical programme wants Ghanaians to start ignoring the prescriptions of divine revelation right from childhood.

“Global ethics wants us to sin outright without feeling ashamed. It wants us to live with dead consciences which will not make us guilty of sins committed against God”, he pointed out.

Mr. Cosmas Yeleduor, Upper West regional Manager of Catholic Schools, said state partnership with especially the Catholic Church had brought numerous benefits to the people in the area of health, sanitation and water.

He, however, noted with sadness that the partnership had remained fluid and undocumented with many of the lessons learnt from the relationship hidden in the archives.**