Adutwum not fixing education; rather fixated on running mate ambition – Yamin

The National Organizer of the National Democratic Congress(NDC) Joseph Yamin has taken a swipe at the Education Minister Dr. Osei Yaw Adutwum for failure to address pertinent challenges bedeviling Ghana’s Education Sector.

Speaking to Julius Caesar Anadem on Ultimate FM’s Cup of Tea Show, he contended that the Minister was rather fixated on optics that would fuel his ambition to be favored for a potential running mate position in the New Patriotic Party.

“The man is concentrated on how to deceive Ghanaians to become a running mate and not to improve the education system. The system is bad under his administration,” he flared.

The former Minister of Youth and Sports is particularly peeved with the fragmented education calendar of the Senior High School system which he bitterly described as a drain on parents.

Recounting a personal experience of travelling a long distance to pick up his daughter a few weeks after dropping her off in school as a first-year student, he narrated the story of another female student who was left stranded because her parents wouldn’t afford remitting her a transport fare after paying so much to get her to school.

“I watched that girl standing by my car and I had to call her and ask her what the problem is. We called her parents through a house mistress’ line. Her parents complained they had no idea the children were coming home and that they were going to struggle to pay eighty cedis for the bus the students had organized.”

He lamented that for the two months that the students were going to remain in the house, parents enrolling the students in a minimum of four subjects for extra classes would spend nothing less than three thousand cedis.

He described, “In Accra, some schools are charging 300 cedis per subject for extra classes. If you add the child’s transportation and other expenses, you are likely to spend about 3000 cedis while this is supposed to be a free SHS beneficiary.”

If you opted for a child to have a personal tutor, you are looking at paying 500 cedis per subject teacher plus their transportation for the whole month. How many families can afford this?” he queried.

Mr. Yamin expressed concern several children were slipping into bad company having stayed for a series of vacations for prolonged periods of time when they would have ordinarily been in school.