Private schools appeal to govt to publish education report

Accra, Sept 12, GNA- The Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) has appealed to the government to publish the recommendations of the Education Reform Commission report to facilitate a vigorous public debate before its implementation.

In a statement signed by its President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah on Friday, the association said it is worried that this has not been done.

"It is absolutely necessary that this report should have been given prior diligent nation-wide discussion because it aimed at a holistic examination of all problems facing the country's education reforms", the statement said.

It recalled that last month the government gave millions of cedis from the GETFund to all the tertiary institutions to enable them to solve some of their problems.

The association said it believes that shortage of lecturers is among multi-faceted problems confronting these institutions whose limited facilities have been over-stretched for years now.

It said it is for this reason why the whole report should be subjected to a vigorous debate as was done to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to enable all stakeholders to have their inputs incorporated in the recommendations.

''This will avoid the unfortunate problems associated with the introduction of the junior secondary school concept in 1985 when the valid views of the general public were ignored to the disadvantage of the nation.''

"The Association is convinced that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, which is acknowledged to be a people-centred government, will seriously consider this appeal so that the nation does not repeat the past mistakes'', the statement said.