Dr. Adutwum doesn't understand the Community High School concept

Ho. Alex Kyeremeh, a Former Deputy Minister For Education.

For the past two decades, the annual demand for secondary education in Ghana has exceeded 20%.

This is as a result of the population boom and the rise in the prominence parents give to educating children.

Evidently, the demand for space in Senior High School (SHS) is surging and still unmet due to infrastructural challenges. The idea of the Community Senior High School came into conception in 2012 after series of meetings by stakeholders. The idea was to establish new schools with first-class facilities like what you find in the E Blocks,closer to some communities with high numbers of JHS students. Some of these communities were in urban, peri-urban and some deprived communities across the country. This were contained in a statement released by Hon Alex Kyeremeh a former Deputy Education Minister and the current National Treasurer of the NDC.

Bringing senior high schools closer to the communities makes it affordable to the people and enhances community participation and ownership for effective and efficient management that had characterised these schools for better academic performance. This Community School Concept attracted the World Bank, and they agreed to support the programme. They recommended it to many Countries using our model. It must be noted that the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service only identified the districts and municipalities that needed additional SHS.

The Beneficial Assemblies were asked to identify communities and engage Traditional Authorities to acquire land, which should not be less than ten hectares. The Eblocks were phase one of the project. In some communities, the idea was to add additional facilities like dormitories, dining halls, and staff bungalows. By July 2016, we started awarding contracts for some of these schools, which were at advanced stages of completion.

He also added that for instance, Krobo Community School in Techiman North in Bono East got approval for the construction of 2 dormitory blocks and dining hall and a kitchen. Funding for the Community Secondary Schools project was from Getfund and a $ 156m facility from the World Bank, so it is not true there were no funds for the project.

After 7 years, none of these facilities saw the light of day notwithstanding numerous appeals to Dr Osei Adutwum because Getfund was collateralised for $1.2 billion loan which Getfund has to pay 60% of its money to defray the loan and for ten years the government is yet to publish what it used the $ 1.2 billion for. Moreover,government also capped 20% of the fund to add to its unsatisfied spending.

It must be noted that as these schools were waiting for additional facilities 66 seater buses were given to all schools to bring students from nearby communities to school diary.

Hon Alex Kyeremeh continued that Dr Oseitwum must be bold and upfront enough to mention schools that were constructed as indicated by him when he visited Ejura. "Dr Adutwum must guide his utterance because some of us will not allow him to run his mouth to cover his incompetence and lack of knowledge in the educational system in this country".

The former Deputy Education minister also opined that the truth of the matter is that of all the revenue and loans raked in by this government they have deliberately refused to put money into education.NDC government was able to do so much for education because it committed more than 20% of annual revenue to education.

Apart from 2017, this government has committed less than 20% to education 20% is the threshold of the United Nations. Sadly, this year, the government's budget for education is only 14%. This is the reason they can not do any meaningful infrastructure projects in education.

This is the minister who has been presiding over Basic Schools without textbooks for the past 4 years Unprecedented schools under trees, classrooms without tables and chairs also known as schools of shame courtesy of JOY TV.

For the past 3 years, more than 40,000 teachers have left the shores of this country, and this Minister and his government were able to replace only 16,000. Some schools in deprived areas are without teachers Hon Alex Kyeremeh added.

The Minister must be told now that education in Ghana is not only SHS. Even the Free SHS is seriously in trouble because of lack of infrastructure and intermittent supply of food due to inadequate funds.

Since 2016, when the last textbooks for SHS were procured,by NDC, not a single textbook has been added. Looking at the numbers, many students are without textbooks.

This is the same minister who can contract people to print past questions and answers annually but not textbooks. As reported last week in the media, more than 136,000 first-year students have not reported to school. Is the Minister aware? Students spend more time at home because of unpopular double tracks. What's going on? Tertiary institutions also have their fair share of the problems. Senior staff of our universities are on strike.

Moreover, Hon Alex Kyeremeh said the current education calendar is in a mess. Education in Ghana is going down with each passing moment, and the minister is advised to sit down and work instead of always taking praise.

He sounded this caution to him that any attack or fabrication against His Excellence John Dramani Mahama will not be tolerated and concluded that H E John Mahama is a precious gem of our time and the only hope we have in Ghana.