MR. KWEKU Bekoe, a retired civil servant, has called on the Ghanaian electorate to vote for politicians, and the political party that makes a radical decision, to ensure that all its ministers send their children of schoolgoing age, to public schools.

“The political party that will get my mandate, is the one that makes a radical decision to say that all its cabinet ministers, having children of schoolgoing age, must let them attend public schools,” he told The Chronicle in Kumasi.

According to Mr. Bekoe, it is only that political party which will be firmly committed to seeing to the proper formation of pupils in public schools, which they collectively manage.

He noted that after half a century of political independence, the nation can ill-afford officials, who have no sense of purpose and urgency towards matters of state.

Mr. Bekoe, whose concern is premised on the steep fall of standards of education in public basic schools, said the lack of a sense of purpose and urgency, on the part of our ministers and government officials, had led to consigning a vast majority of human resources to a life of mediocrity, which must be stopped, if the ultimate objective of imparting knowledge to school children is to be attained.

Until such a move is taken, the School Feeding Programme, Capitation Grant and other interventions, would amount to a waste of resources.

He said since public schools cater for a greater percentage of pupils of schoolgoing age, it was imperative that the state make efforts to show commitment, and improve upon the quality of education, by motivating teachers, who are at the centre of child development.

He said it was not an impossibility, because, after all, our past heroes and heroines of repute, notably Dr. Nkrumah, Dr. Danquah, Dr. Busia (Politics), Dr. Aggrey (education), Doctors Armattoe, Easmon, Evans Anfom (medicine), F. E. Boateng, Quayson-Sackey, Kofi Annan (Diplomacy), and a host of countless others, had their basic primary education through either the 'mission' or public schools, where they acquired a firm grounding in their basic tuition, and made their take-off in their secondary, for a smooth tertiary education.

According to him, there was no commitment on the part of the Minister seeing to it that the tax payers' money, invested in public schools, was judiciously utilized.

The concerned retired civil servant indicated that it was morally wrong, for ministers to send their children to private schools, and sometimes abroad, while they misapply huge sums of money meant for improving these public schools.

Mr. Bekoe noted that the public primary education in the country is currently “indeed an apology” of what the situation used to be in the past.

According to him, while the emerging private preparatory and so-called international schools, with mostly untrained and poorly-paid teachers, dominate high on the rungs of the BECE charts, public schools with well-trained and better paid teachers, wallow on the fringes of the charts published yearly.

“The results follow these patterns, year in year, out as a result of which private education has become more expensive,” he noted. Mr. Bekoe attributed the fallen standards in schools, to lack of commitment on the part of ministers, and improper management of public schools by public officers, government officials and functionaries, and lack of proper supervision of teachers by the Inspectorate Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES), resulting in the lackadaisical attitude of teachers to work.

He also chastised officials of the Ministry of Education, and the GES, who are directly charged with the responsibility of managing basic public schools in the country, but have all shamelessly joined the bandwagon, under the bizarre scenario of sending their wards to private preparatory, and so-called international schools.

He noted that the situation had also been aggravated, by the fact that GES officials no longer visit public schools on inspection, and that when they do, has always been to the private schools for personal gain and favours, while teachers care very little about the welfare of children entrusted to their care.

He said the teachers no longer regarded their profession as a vocation, because most of the present day teachers found their way into the profession by accident, and suggested that a difference could be made, if the teacher was well catered for. Source: Sebastian R. Freiku, Kumasi - Ghanaian Chronicle