Open Letter To The Director-General Of GES On The Obnoxious 30% Allocation For Public School Students Into Category A Schools

Dear Dr Eric, Nkansah,
Let me use this opportunity to welcome you officially to the office. May I repeat what I shared on Facebook when you were appointed in spite of the unnecessary strike that the teacher unions embarked on:

"Congratulations, Eric Nkansah, PhD.
This elevation requires hard work. Ghana education is at a crossroad. Too many problems that required simple solutions have been left to worsen. Stinking corruption at every level.

There's a condensed aura of determination and excellence around you. We pray you execute your mandate fearlessly and creatively.

Simple message: "Inject some dignity into our education.""

In this piece, I decide not to discuss the issue of corruption and malfeasance in the service. Those issues will be up for discussion another day.

I know you have all the briefing. Even as Deputy Director, you knew about the “government policy” that states that 30% of the Category A second-cycle schools should be reserved for students from the public schools.

No sooner had the 2023 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) ended than your outfit issued a communique on the impending school selection and placement for the candidates. Parents are still waiting to make the selections. Heads of schools are waiting as well. However, as we wait, I want to draw your attention to the 30% quota.

May I know what your views about this policy are? Could you honestly explain to Ghanaians how fair this policy is? Is there any plausible justification for this inequity? Could you make public the document that contains this policy?

Many an official from the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service (GES) has continuously reiterated this position of government, insisting that it is due to the lack of proper and adequate infrastructure in the public schools. That most of the public schools do not have the requisite teaching and learning resources. That the students in the public schools do not have same ease of learning as provided for students in the private schools.

We empathise and sympathise solemnly with government. We know that the burden of providing the public schools the needed resources is heavy. We acknowledge that the classrooms are overpopulated. And teachers are also overburdened with numerous tasks.

Therefore, as operators of and industry players in the private schools sector, our contribution is to invest into establishing schools that will absorb the teeming number of school-age children. Many of the children who attend private schools currently would have had no choice than to attend public schools if there were no private schools.

The right to education of every child enjoins government to be the principal provider of quality education in the country. And government must ensure that every child enjoys good education with all the appropriate resources. That said, let us reason that the private schools are assisting government to achieve its mandate. Of a truth, without the private schools, Ghana would never have been able to achieve the successes that it has chalked up over the years.

The huge taxes the private schools pay to government. The many young men and women these schools employ. Income tax from these employees are also paid to government. What more should an institution do to show that it is supporting government on every side?

After all these support, the government decides to use your institution to sabotage the private schools. You tell us that you will reserve a whopping 30% of all the category A schools for the students from the public schools. And the 70% is competed for by students from both the private and public schools. It is unfair.

Today, many parents are withdrawing their children from the private schools and enroling them in the public schools in the final years. And the public school heads are not checking any records before admitting them. They register them for the BECE and that’s it.

Unfortunately, it is as if attending public schools makes the child more Ghanaian than attending the privately owned schools. It is no ‘fault’ of some children to have the opportunity to attend the private school. So why try to justify this unjustifiable inequity?

The 30% allocation is your way of telling Ghanaians that there is no way you can make the public schools any better. That the GES and the Ministry of Education cannot embark on creative projects to increase the number of schools, recruit highly-motivated teachers and provide them with the requisite resources to achieve excellence.

Your appointment from a non-typical education background gave some of us educators hope to experience the presence of some excellence in your work. The kind of excellence drawn from other professional sectors to apply in our context. The kind of excellence that is a paradigm shift from the mediocre norm. The kind of excellence that is a departure from the lazy and lackadaisical ways of doing things that have stagnated the progress and success of the education sector. You can do it.

In conclusion, I beseech you to get to work now to scrap this obnoxious policy, fix our public schools and make them competitive.

Yours faithfully,
Signed.
Joseph Appah
(Certified Educator, PGDE - UEW)