Govt To Construct 10 Satellite Campuses; School Feeding To Be Expanded

President John Dramani Mahama says that government will construct ten satellite campuses to make communication and information dissemination easier in tertiary schools in the country.

Delivering his maiden State of the Nation's address to the Sixth Parliament of the Fourth Republic, he pledged his government's commitment to tackling the challenges the education sector is grappling with in order to meet the educational demands on government.

He promised to enhance the training of more teachers and provide them with incentives which will boost teaching and learning in schools. He stated that his government will implement a distance education programme for teachers in order to address the unemployment situation in the country.

Addressing the nation, President Mahama pledged to expand the on-going school feeding programme to all public basic schools in rural communities and also added that under his tenure, schools under trees will be fully eliminated so as to provide high quality education.

He further reiterated that government will construct 200 Senior High Schools across the country to resolve the problems confronting second cycle institutions.

He also stated that he will ensure that ten public polytechnics in the nation are upgraded into full-fledged technical Universities and also promised to enact a bill that will see in construction a new University in the Eastern Region to address the challenges in the education sector.

His government, he noted, will continue the distribution of free laptops, school uniforms and exercise books to public schools and students. Government will further equip the visually and hearing impaired with essential devices to aid them in teaching and learning.

President Mahama called on religious bodies and communities to partner government in improving the education sector of the economy.

Read below excerpts of the President's State of the Nation address:

“Mr. Speaker, our quest to build an equitable society in which the productive capacities of our people are tapped for national development will come to nought if we do not give our children sound, meaningful and relevant education. This is even more imperative in today's knowledge-based economy. Any nation whose people do not have the required level of education will be left behind. Towards this end, we will prioritize and expand access to education at all levels. We will aggressively address quality enhancement and outcomes at all levels by putting in place measures to monitor quality of education service delivery, especially teaching and learning at the various levels of our education system.

“We will reward outstanding educational service providers to boost morale in the sector and work to improve gender parity in education. We will encourage community participation in the management of schools. We will work towards standardization and affordability in school fees.

“Mr. Speaker, I extend a hand of partnership to our social partners; the religious bodies with long-standing roles in the provision of educational services and private sector operators of education service to engage in this national reconstruction exercise for expanding access and improving quality of education in Ghana.

“To this end, district assemblies will be required to incrementally build new structures in all existing public schools to serve the needs of kindergarten education. We shall expand training of kindergarten teachers to ensure that our children all over the country acquire basic numeracy and literacy skills before they start primary education.

“We will over the next four years construct a total of 200 new community-based Senior High Schools...”

“In the next few months, government will roll out a special sandwich teacher educational training programme targeted at our unemployed graduates in preparation for the full implementation of our access to secondary education programme.We will lead a process to modernize and increase the number of colleges of education with special emphasis on deprived areas and communities.

We will design and implement a distance education programme for teachers with ten decentralized satellite campuses across the country.”

“Government will facilitate the completion of ongoing construction of assessment centres and equip our special education units with the necessary teaching and learning aid including devices for the hearing and visually impaired.”

“Mr. Speaker, this year; we will initiate a bill for parliamentary consideration towards the establishment of a new University in the Eastern region. This University will be committed to sustainable environmental development and research. In addition, we will begin the roadmap for converting our existing ten public polytechnics into fully-fledged technical Universities.”