Towards Quality Education Delivery: Ghana Tops All

Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, Education Minister

Every nation aspires to provide education with the needed strength and stamina to confront ignorance, unemployment and poverty. Good quality education service delivery promotes peace, unity and wealth among people. Ghana resolves to imbibe knowledge, skills and competencies in its citizens for healthy living.

In its paper, Defining Quality in Education, the United Nations Children’s Fund (2000) identifies the learner, learning environment, content, processes and learning outcomes as the determinants of any education that aims at “the rights of the whole child and all children to survival, protection, development and participation”. The Education for All Global Monitoring Report of UNESCO (2005) analyses quality education using the learner characteristics, enabling inputs and learning outcomes as Professor Francis Amedahe (2014) decides to use parental support, class size, supervision and management, teacher characteristics and professional development, and instructional inputs as well as time on task for his argument.

The Ministry of Education (2016) on “Quality of education: what has improved over the past decade_2005-2015” says, “Over the years, the quality of delivery of the Ghanaian education system has been assessed through the observation and analysis of certain key quality indicators like the pupil-teacher ratio, pupil-core textbook ratio, percentage of trained teachers and time on task.”

Which ever way one would want to look at it, the fact still holds that quality education arises from the support services received from sources, such as the parent, teacher, school environment, learner and the system itself in relation to the national and global demands. Pigozzi (2004) could not also have put it any better when she reiterated the need for education to be made relevant to the society in which the learner lives for it to be tagged as being effective. Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah in 2009, at the launch of a book titled, “Teaching and Education for Teaching in Developing Countries: Essays in Honour of Prof. Jophus Anamuah-Mensah at Winneba” also called for effective stakeholder support in designing policies and programmes that would meet global demand.

This write-up gives a highlight of the extent to which our pre-tertiary education has performed so far. EdQual (2010) says quality pre-tertiary education develops in the young individual the knowledge, skills and attitude that are needed for laying the foundations for further education and sustainable livelihood. Though faced with some mishaps, Ghana’s system of education can still be said to be potent among the comity of nations. We are a strong model and reference to nations. They ‘envy’ us and copy a lot of things from us. My Malian ex-mate at Ghana Institute of Journalism, Ramata, once told me, “Ghana is a strong reference for education; we respect you a lot and that’s why I’m here to do this course.”

Governments, over the years, have done their bits to place us at where we are today as a country. Our records, in terms of access to equity and quality education, have been quite okay. Statistics at Ghana Education Service (GES) indicates that the pupil-to-teacher ratio moved from 30 pupils per teacher to 34 pupils per teacher from 2000 to 2012 as against 42 pupils per teacher in sub-Sahara Africa within the same period. It has also emerged that the number of trained basic school teachers has risen from an average of 44.7% in 2001/2002 to 75.1% by 2013/2014 with focus on Education Strategic Plan (2010-2020), which prescribes an average of 95% trained teacher population for the basic level.

In its bid to enhance accountability in schools, improve teacher presence and time on task, GES embarks on quarterly visits to and monitoring of schools and institutions with collaboration from the National Inspectorate Board of the Ministry of Education. According to Ministry of Education (2016), the effect of proper supervision and monitoring is drastic reduction in teacher absenteeism by 11%. It says a total of 12.5 million textbooks have been distributed to public basic schools resulting in the improvement of the core textbook-to-pupil ratio from 1:1.1 in 2008/2009 to 1:2.8 in 2013/2014. It also informs that 1,437,500 readers and 9,200 teaching guide in eleven languages have been supplied to basic schools to improve pupils’ understanding of numeracy, arithmetic, literacy and basic life skills in their local languages.

Available data from the Education Management Information System of the Ministry of Education has revealed a huge support from the Ghana Partnership for Education Grant (GPEG) and GES to train 6,865 pupil teachers in under-served districts for them to become professional teachers under the Untrained Teacher Development for Basic Education (UTDBE) programme. The module is also targeted at enhancing the number and quality of teachers that are needed to provide early childhood care and education.

Hard work, they say, pays. We would not have reached this far as a nation if we had relaxed and slept off on the job at the offices and schools. Ghana takes part in pre-tertiary examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) with Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. And we have, for the past four consecutive years, claimed all of WAEC’s top international academic excellence awards at the senior high school category, hurray! It all started when Asafo-Adjei Priscilla and pals; Tsorgali Josephine and Nyarko David Kofi took the first, second and third positions respectively in 2008 to beat their Nigerian, Liberian, Sierra Leonean and the Gambian counterparts. In 2009, Adu-Poku Frank, Ofori Maame Afua Otua and Karim Fathia scored first, second and third. The year, 2010 did not witness any external examinations. The nation was busily reverting its four-year senior high school programme to three years.

Yvette Yeboah-Kordieh, Josebert Abaasa Ayambire and Bright Seyram Tsevi; Ivy Ama Mannoh and Mwinmaarong Lucio Dery, and Hasan Mickail, Kenyah Blaykyi and Archibald Enninful lifted all three awards for first, second and third positions in each of the respective year groups of 2012, 2013 and 2014. These feats are same as what were recorded by Master Parker Bessant Allen and friends in 1992, Agbadzi Anthony Kweku and colleagues in 1993 as well as Dodoo Nii Lartey and others in 1994.

President John Mahama, represented by his vice at the President’s Excellence Awards, awarded some 20 candidates who distinguished themselves in the 2015 edition of the Basic Education Certificate Examinations on the eve of the nation’s Independence Day. It is gratifying to note that 13 of the awardees came from public schools, a development which goes to confirm that public school education is not doing badly, after all.

The claps are not over yet. The 64^th Annual Council Meeting of WAEC has just ended. It happened at the International Conference Centre in Accra and President Mahama was there. Jessica Ayeley Quaye, Ruth Ewura-Ama Awudzi and Danielle Amo-Mensah, all of Wesley Girls’ High School in Cape Coast, swept all the awards for last year. It was, indeed, a feminine-victory rally as all the winners happened to be mistresses. Teachers, students and Old Girls of Wesley Girls’ High School, including the Education Minister Prof. Opoku-Agyemang herself an old student, sang their school anthem and cheered up their awardee sisters. In fact, they showed off and everybody was happy for them! Dr. Evelyn Kandakai, chairperson of WAEC, and delegates from the Gambia, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone also attended.

Let’s continue to work together on our education for our own good!

E-mail: [email protected]
The writer is an educationist and a Public Relations Officer at the Headquarters of the Ghana Education Service.