Action needed in education -minister

Accra, April 5, GNA - Education, Science and Sports Minister Papa Owusu-Ankomah, on Wednesday said an unprecedented action was needed to enhance the development of secondary education in Africa.

"The challenge is to move from rhetoric to action... The task ahead is very enormous. But I believe with dedication, commitment and focus, we shall succeed in our objective of providing a meaningful Secondary Education to meet the developmental needs of the Continent in a global setting", Papa Owusu-Ankomah said in Accra. Addressing the closing of a three-day third Regional Conference on Secondary Education and Training in Africa (SEIA), Papa Owusu-Ankomah, called on education experts in Africa and governments to continue to combine their efforts to ensure a better future for Africa's children.


"May it never be said of this conference that it was one of the usual talk shows," the Minister told the Conference, which brought together 30 African Ministers and their country teams, donor agencies and representatives from African civil society. It aimed at fostering better dialogue on secondary education and training in Africa among donor organizations, key stakeholders and African governments.


During the Conference, there was a presentation on a SEIA Synthesized Report dubbed; "At the Crossroads- Choices for the Development of Secondary Education in Sub Saharan Africa".


Participants also listened to presentations by various country representatives on country cases where key features of various countries' best practices, issues and bottlenecks for secondary education reforms were highlighted for discussion.

Also working group discussions were held on thematic areas as political and strategic issues related to charting the way forward for meeting secondary education and training challenges in Africa for the next five years. The conference also discussed cost and financing secondary education, quality and relevance in secondary education and curricula assessment examinations.


Mr Mamadau Ndoye, Executive Secretary of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), took African education ministers to task and observed resistance to the implementation of policies could be both from internal external.


Such resistance could come from policy makers themselves, through the allocation of inadequate resources, lack of priorities and lack of commitment to the policies.


He called for the building of effective bridges among policy makers, managers of secondary school financiers to address the gaps for proper running of secondary schools.