Ghana's education in crisis — Mahdi Gibril

Mahdi Gibril, a Communication team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said public basic education is confronted with many challenges.

Mahdi Gibril indicated that parents do not know exactly when public basic schools will even reopen whereas private basic schools have reopened on Monday, January 10, 2022.

“44,000 teachers out of 284,000 Basic school teachers left the teaching profession in 2021 alone. This is 15%, the highest in 20 years. Why did they walk away from the classroom, and how soon will they be replaced?’’ Mahdi Gibril exclusively told Kwaku Dawuroon Anopa Nkomo on Accra-based Kingdom FM 107.7

He continued “Capitation Grant is in arrears for Four Tranches (2 each for 2019/2020 & 2020/2021 academic years). And because of this, Heads borrowed in order to keep the schools running because that’s the only source of income for Basic schools. When will the arrears be paid?”

Mahdi Gibril added that there are no textbooks in the public basic schools two years after the implementation of the new Standards-Based, “yet we claim to be implementing a standard-based curriculum?”

But the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Mr. Kwesi Kwarteng has revealed that government is working to set a date for the re-opening of basic schools, across the country.

Mr. Kwarteng refuted claims that the absence of an academic calendar can jeopardise the studies of pupils in basic schools across the country.

According to him, the Ministry of Education is working to resolve the current challenge.