Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum,Deputy Minister of Education
The Ministry of Education is to establish a Management Division to enhance the capacities of new head teachers.
Itis aimed at improving teaching and learning at schools, a Deputy Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has stated.
He said the Management Division would be funded by the Government of Ghana, the World Bank and other partners.
He explained that the diivision would also train teachers on leadership issues to prepare them with the needed skills before they are appointed to head schools.
Dr Adutwum disclosed this in an interview with the Ghanaian Times after the presentation of the World Bank Human Capital Index (HCI) report.
The Deputy Minister said the new division would be established next year in partnership with Varkey Foundation, a non-governmental organisation.
As part of the programme, the World Bank new report titled “Facing Forward—Schooling for Learning Africa,” which highlights the crisis in basic education throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and examines prospects of schooling and learning in Africa was also launched.
Dr Adutwum expressed concern that some headmasters whose schools continue to perform poorly but are still kept at post.
“Headmastership should not be seen as a position where you just go and stay there and if your school is not performing, you keep your job. They should be held to account and commended when they do well,” he said.
He said government was providing the financial and logistical needs of schools and it behooved on headmasters to work hard to improve upon academic work at their various schools.
The Human Development Programme Leader for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Antonio Giuffrida elucidating on the HCI report, said the HCI was to measure the human capital that a child born today would be expect to attain by age 18.
He said the report, which touched on education and health, indicated that 56 per cent of children in the country would not be productive when they grow and attributed the challenge to the inability of such children to complete school on stunted growth and poor education.
The Global Practice Director of Education for the World Bank, Dr Luis Benveniste highlighting on the “Facing Forward—Schooling for Learning Africa Report,” said Ghana had done well on access to education both at the primary and secondary level.
However, he said “minimum conditions in schools such as availability of electricity, latrines and potable water, remained a concern and the lower than average standard for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr Benveniste stressed the need for the government to invest in early quality pre-primary education, saying it was critical to develop the non-cognitive foundation skills of children.
He also suggested that government must initiate policies to address inequality gap in education and pointed out that “policies need to help level playing field” for children.
By Kingsley Asare & Lucy Abeduwaa Appiah
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