Adding Value To Teaching And Learning

COMMENTARY  ON ADDING VALUE TO TEACHING AND LEARNING AS PRESIDENT MAHAMA LAUNCHES THE FREE SHS POLICY VIS-À-VIS OTHER INTERVENTIONS

In line with the ruling NDC government’s manifesto to ensure equitable access to secondary education, President John Dramani Mahama made two key campaign promises in the run-up to the 2012 general elections.  The first one was to build 200 community day Senior High Schools (SHSs). And the second was to implement the 1992 constitutional requirement to make secondary education progressively free.  It is significant to note that the objective of the dual promise is to expand physical access, with a focus on under-served areas. One of the completed schools, named after the late President John Evans Atta Mills, was commissioned yesterday by President John Mahama at Ekumfi Otuam in the Central Region, which is the hometown of the late former President.  Media reports indicate that the school building is made up of 24 classrooms, four science laboratories, two libraries, eight offices for departmental heads and ICT laboratories. President Mahama simultaneously launched the progressively free senior high school education policy from the next academic year to start with day students and for the first term, 320,488 students will be covered. To demonstrate its resolve to successfully kick-start the programme, the government is said to have released 12 point two million cedis to the Ministry of Education to pay for the first term fees.  Items covered by the fees include examination, library, entertainment, Students Representative Council (SRC) dues, science development, science and mathematics quiz, sports, culture, ICT and curricula. It is gratifying to note that even though the free SHS was beginning with day students, the road map for implementation would be religiously followed to cover boarding students in the future. 

In recognition of the fact that teachers are central to any meaningful education policy, the Ministry of Education is also reported to have received funds to recruit 9, 300 professional teachers to start the free SHS programme.  It is also good news that 123 of the community day SHSs are at various levels of construction and hopefully would be fully completed by the end of 2016. Government must be commended for increasing SHS enrolment from 80 thousand in 2001 to one point six million in 2015. It would be recalled that, a few weeks ago, the Minister for Education, Professor Nana Jane Opoku-Agyemang presented educational items to the ten regional directors of education. These supplies were expected to reach all basic schools across the country before schools reopened on September 8, 2015. Indeed the President’s launching of the community SHS policy and the progressively free SHS programme as well as other mentioned interventions by government must be good news to all, who cherish not only equal access to education, but also quality teaching and learning in a conducive environment.  

BY: DAN OSMAN MWIN, PUBLIC RELATIONS PRACTITIONER WITH THE NATIONAL AMBULANCE SERVICE.