Basic education, foundation for national dev't - Prof Adei

Professor Stephen Adei, former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) on Tuesday said quality education at the basic and secondary levels were foundations of human resource development.

He said at the moment, those levels were weak and there was the need for the nation to rise up and work towards an improvement.

Prof Adei was speaking at the Fourth Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the Ghana National Association of Teachers in Accra on the theme: “Framing Education for the Public Good”.

He said there was a lack of effective and credible medium to long term vision, strategy and political will to provide the country the needed human resources for accelerated growth and development.

He said there was ineffective centralised educational governance and management system, of which the Ghana Education Service had ceased to be an effective channel to implement modern educational standards.

Prof Adei said there were inequalities in the educational system resulting in big urban-rural divide and social stratification.

He said there was the lack of acquisition of the requisite knowledge and skills to participate in the modern economy in a globalised world.

“It has incalculable negative consequence for the individual student who not only fails terminal examinations but even end up not functionally literate and numerate,” he said.

He called for an all inclusive non-partisan national vision and agenda for human resource development that would drive the education policy and practice.

Prof Adei said the policy must last for a minimum of 10 years, and it should be elaborated by a national committee.

He said there was the need for a different approach in providing basic and senior cycle educational infrastructure.

Prof Adei said the country’s education policy for 2015 and beyond should drastically reduce the continuing de-facto centralisation of education governance in the Ghana Education Service.

He said what was actually lacking was the leadership, political will, discipline, accountability, integrity and transparency, and the Government must provide leadership in that regard.