Veep Wife Talks Tough Over Extra And Co-Curricular Education Expo 2014 Launch

The wife of the Vice President of Ghana, His Excellency Mrs. Matilda Amissah-Arthur has emphasized the need for an Extra and Co-Curricular Education in order to improve the quality delivery of basic school education in the country.

People in developing countries are reacting to a situation where they see nothing good coming out of school because public schools in particular, are in the businesses of producing failures, so they ask themselves, 'what is the benefit of sending children to school?,' especially those in the poor communities.

Soon after a major debate about the dwindling quality of education in Ghana, a new survey revealed that 98 percent of pupils in basic schools could neither read nor understand English or any Ghanaian Language properly.

This was published in the National Education Assessment (NEA) report, a survey carried out by the Assessment Services Unit (ASU) of the Ghana Education Service (GES) with support from the Research Triangle International RTI.

It is in this direction that VEEP's wife, Mrs. Amissah-Arthur has stressed the importance of out of the school curricular activities where children can properly be engaged to improve on their learning difficulties.

According to her, out of the school environment prepares the ground for an emotional and psychological wellbeing of children in a friendly environment.

This, she believes the focus of e-learning, libraries and research, leisure and recreation, health and safety will build the natural ability of students to explore their potentials.

VEEP wife however cautioned parents at the ceremony to keep sight of their children and their frequent visit to the computers since most of them may be found watching pornographic movies, playing war games or video games.

She said this when she joined teachers of basic schools at the second edition of the Extra and Co-Curricular Education Expo (ECCE 2014) in Accra at African Regent Hotel on Wednesday.

Mrs. Amissah-Arthur urged parents to encourage their children to join schools clubs, singing groups in order to unleash their natural abilities.

AnisHaffar, the founder of GATE institute, in an interview with the Punch mentioned that there are two kinds of skills; cognitive and affective skills.

According to him, affective skills are those focused beyond the classroom activities whereas the cognitive skills are those thought in the classroom to improve the ability of students to write, read, understand and pass examinations.

However, another aspect in education psychological which he called the effective domain is where children learn to become more eloquent, to persevere, curious, and leadership skills which are the main objectives of the event.

The program is to incorporate those types of intelligence and for teachers and heads to meet to improve on their own delivery in oder to explore the qualities and natural abilities of children.

According to him, the basic educational system needs to be grounded in such a way that education should be decentralized in order to bring on board local contents.

Dr. Marilyn Marbell-Wilson, medical doctor at Princess Marie Louise Children's Hospital, during a presentation on school health services mentioned activities that the teachers can engaged to make sure that school children are emotionally, psychologically, physically and logically enhanced.

In the school health delivery, she therefore urged heads of schools to provide a compulsory basic health delivery system in their respective schools by building the capacity of some staffs to make sure that students stay healthy.

Teachers at the ceremony took advantage of the opportunity to network with other schools, as well as exhibitors and presenters in order to negotiate rates, plan programmes for their students and parents.

Notwithstanding, the event also dashed prizes to teachers provide the platform to learn about news products, teaching approaches, teaching approaches and education-related service.

ECCE 2014, organized by diffusion under the theme: “Going within and beyond” seek to encourage a comprehensive reevaluation of Ghanaian basic education beyond the classroom and normal school timetable.

The importance of the ceremony was to whip up the competencies of students in Ghana with soft skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, communication skills, creativity and innovation, life skills, financial literacy and global awareness.

The Executive Director of diffusion, Leroy Ankrah said the initiative seeks to improve the potential and imagination capabilities of students particularly, with special focus on aspects of Extra and Co-Curricular Education such as electronic learning, libraries and research, leisure and recreation, special needs of students, and health and safety.

He assured that the home-grown 2015 ECCE initiative will come with several exhibitions and conference slated for Friday - Saturday 2-3 October, 2015.