A Tale of Two Education Ministers: Jane vs. Napo

Professor Naana Jane Opoku and Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh (NAPO) are both vying to become Ghana’s Vice President from January 7, 2025. These two personalities have different professions so it could be difficult to assess their competence for the job based on their professional work experience. Professor Jane is an educationist whilst Napo is a medical doctor. Luckily, both have been ministers of Education for four years, Jane handed over to Napo. Let’s therefore assess their competence with their work output at the Education ministry.

The NDC 2012 manifesto promised to review capitation grant annually. In the period of four years under Mahama’s presidency, Jane added nothing to the capitation grant for basic schools till NDC left office in 2016 when their re-election bid failed. Head of basic schools lacked funds for buying teaching-learning materials (TLMs) including chalk, the cheapest and most common commodity among the TLMs. The worst of it is that Jane did not only fail to increase the capitation grant from 4.50 Ghana Cedis, but also had arears of 9 million Ghana Cedis, according to her own handover notes to Napo, who succeeded her in 2017.

Napo was the first Education Minister in the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government. Upon receiving the shocking handing over notes from Jane, NAPO speedily reviewed the capitation grant and increased it by 100% in 2017 right away. The new Akufo-Addo government had not generated any fresh revenue. Competent Napo increased and paid from the same national coffers incompetent Jane could not pay from. NAPO increased it from 4.50 to 9 Ghana Cedis in 2017 and again increased it to 10 Ghana Cedis a year later in 2018. In nutshell, Napo increased the Capitation Grant 120% in 4 years, whilst Jane scored increased it 0% in the same period. Napo certainly outperformed Jane and would certainly do a better job as Vice President.

Napo again proved to be more competent with the Basic School Feeding Program initiated by the Kuffour-led NPP government. By the time Kuffour was leaving office, 600, 000 pupils benefitted from the program, which was increased to 800,000 pupils by the Mills-led NDC government. Former president Mahama completed Mills’ presidential term and campaigned on the NDC 2012 and was elected into office as a substantive president. In the NDC 2012 manifesto, page 21, it is stated that the Ministry of Education would expand the program to cover 1,4 million pupils. Further, page 24 of the manifesto promised to progressively expand the program to cover all public basic schools in needy and rural communities. According to the 2018 budget statement, paragraph 892, Jane added 477, 000 pupils to the program, Jane performed poorly, using the NDC 2012 manifesto as the marking scheme. On the other hand, 2021 budget statement states that Napo increased the program beneficiaries to over 3 million pupils. Additionally, Napo paid Jane’s debt and had no arears by the time he left the Education Ministry. Whilst Jane is caused stagnation with the Basic School Feeding Program, Napo expanded the coverage massively and paid all arears. Napo is the right person to replace Bawumia as Vice President improve upon all good policies Bawumia has spearheaded or initiated. Jane’s incompetence will cause stagnation and would relegate the vice presidency to its old status of attending only ceremonies.

The biggest social intervention in the life of Ghana is free Senior High School Education Program. The program is novel in Ghana and with scarce experience to learn from, Napo implemented and succeeded with all the inevitable challenges. Free SHS has come to stay, thanks to the competence, determination, and resilience of Napo. On the other hand, Mahama-led NDC government appointed Jane to lead the Education Ministry to implement progressive free SHS and the performance was below average. The page 25 of the 2012 NDC manifesto promised universal access to SHS by 2016 through progressively free SHS education and establishment of 200 community day schools, popularly known as E-blocks. By the time NDC was voted out of government in 2016, Jane’s ministry of education had only 123 sites of E-blocks at various stages of completion with majority of them at the foundation level, 23 parcels of land secured for work to be commenced, and with only 29 completed. Each of the E-blocks were estimated to cost between 5 and 6.5 million Ghana Cedis, with the total estimated to be around 1.3 billion Ghana Cedis. Jane as a minister of Education failed to build the 200 E-blocks at 1.3 billion Ghana Cedis, but Napo, equally a minister of education had 3 billion Ghana Cedis initial investment on TVET schools and had free SHS starting cost at 2 billion Ghana Cedis. What would Jane do at the office of the Vice President without specific task when she failed to implement key promises in the NDC 2012 manifesto on education? Napo’s competence and political experience secured financial support for projects that had no specific source of funding.

Professor Jane failed to secure approval for funds to be released for the payment of bills as a minister of education. As an educationist and a teacher, she was a disappointment to her colleague teachers. Some teachers worked for three years and only received three months’ salaries. During her time as education minister, she supervised the cancellation of nursing students and teacher trainees’ allowances. The University of Cape Coast, where Jane had worked as a Vice Chancellor, demanded for 700 lecturers and other workers, but Jane allowed for only 26 lecturers due to the freeze on university lecturers employment. The university lecturers were also disappointed the more when Jane further cancelled their book and research allowances. Again, Jane could not secure funding for 17 million Ghana Cedis textbook and 40 million Cedis basic school uniform and sandals arears according to the 2017 budget statement, page 103, paragraph 574.

On the other hand, Napo inherited huge legacy arears mentioned above from Jane and paid it all, including E-blocks arears of 900 million Ghana Cedis, GetFund arears of 370 million Ghana Cedis, progressive free SHS arears of 39 cedis per student totaling 301 million Ghana Cedis, special education feeding grant arears of 4 million Ghana Cedis. Under Napo, teacher training allowances, nursing training allowances, teacher development allowances, university lecturers’ book and research allowance were all re-introduced and paid for. Additionally, Napo secured funding for the yellow buses Jane distributed and could not pay for. Napo also secured funding to for the utility bills for tertiary schools that Jane could not pay which added cost to students. No tertiary student pays utility bills now, thanks to Napo. Under Napo, the NPP government paid for 70% examination registration fees in 2017 and made JHS and SHS examination registration free from 2018.

Jane could not secure approval for funds for the unpaid SHS feeding grants in the then three northern regions. NAPO on the other hand paid all free SHS and TVET feeding grants in the whole country. Through the ministry of education, Napo established innovative ways to bring free TVET program under collaborative supervision of 18 ministries in a single administrative system. In the past, the TVET program had suffered some challenges because it falls under various ministries. In all, 139 TVETs under one system were instituted by Napo. Napo’s competence cannot be compared to the below average performance by Jane at the education ministry.

The writer firmly believes that if the NDC allowed presidential debates between Bawumia and Mahama, and by extension a vice-presidential debate between Jane and Napo, it would be a disaster especially for Jane. Jane cannot defend her own handing over notes to Napo. Napo should make loud the tale between himself and Jane as a major campaign message, because it certainly is a nice story to sell.

Eben Johnson - Finland
(Letters Without Signature)

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