Government has dismissed suggestions that its interventions in the education sector are mere tokens, arguing that apart from the massive infrastructural projects, the quality of education has improved.
According to Deputy Communications Minister, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, one thing hindering Ghanaians’ access to quality education was the lack of infrastructure which government is working at providing.
He was speaking on the first edition of political programme, Majority Caucus on the JOYNEWS channel, Wednesday.
Presidential staffer James Agyenim Boateng hosted the show where the National Democratic Congress (NDC) highlighted a number of achievements of the government.
He said the Education sector is the area where government has investment most which was lacking infrastructure when the party came to power.
“There were 4,321 schools under trees for basic schools across the country, which was not the most appropriate condition to educate Ghanaian children. One thousand, six hundred and fourteen out of 2,578 of such projects have been completed and delivered. The remaining will be delivered in due course,” Mr. Ofosu said.
He added that over a hundred million exercise books have been distributed to school children in the course of five years.
Also, he added over 12.5 million textbooks have been distributed to schools which have reduced the textbook-to-pupil ratio which was three pupils to one book.
Mr. Ofosu said, “Four textbooks are given to one person which is exceeding the UN benchmark.”
Over two million school uniforms have been distributed to children in deprived communities and 10,00 sandals have also been distributed to improve access to education, he stressed.
According to Mr. Ofosu, the increase in materials and access to education has seen an increase in enrollment with some 1,800 new addition across all levels.
For the first edition of Majority Caucus, the discussion focused on the governing NDC’s Accounting to the People Green Book.
Felix Kwakye Ofosu lauded the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the novel concept of having a mechanism of putting information about government’s achievements in one book during their term in office.
He said although the NDC criticised the content and quality of NPP’s Four Years of Positive Change publication, the concept was worthy of emulation.
The first edition of NDC’s Green Book catalogued the first 50 Achievements of the late Atta Mills administration and an Overview of the Better Ghana Agenda was the second.
Caucus airs on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 6 pm – 7 pm. The political show has three formats i.e. the Majority Caucus for the NDC, Minority Caucus for the NPP as well as the Joint Caucus which will be moderated by JOYNEWS’ Dzifa Bampoh.
On Thursday, April 7, will be the turn of Perry Okudzeto who plays host as the NPP takes over the Channel with Minority Caucus.
– Source: myjoyonline
