Education Ministry denies blowing $40m on dictionaries

The Education Ministry has described as mischievous a publication suggesting that it has spent 40 million dollars on the procurement of dictionaries.

The Daily Guide Newspaper, which published the story also alleged that the government is spending 44 million dollars on the printing of atlases.

But the Education Ministry in a statement urged the public to ignore the allegations made by the Daily Guide and also urged the newspaper to spend time to cross check their information from the Ministry’s public relations unit at any time before going to press.

The Ministry added that “it has a mandate to help develop the human capital of the country, and it will not be distracted in providing schools with all the teaching/learning materials that are needed in addition to an enabling environment and highly motivated workforce to carry out this mandate.

Below is the full statement by the Education Ministry

Rejoinder – Gov’t Blows $40m on Dictionaries

The attention of the Ministry of Education (MoE) has been drawn to a publication with the above headline in the Monday, November 9, 2015 Issue 261/15 of the Daily Guide, newspaper and wish to respond as follows: Ghana is among a few countries in the West African sub region that has a free textbook procurement and distribution policy.

Under the policy, government provides free text books to all public basic schools.

The government therefore develops standardized and approved textbooks through its publishers.

In the 2015 budget, the Ministry programmed to provide textbooks to improve quality of teaching and learning.

In the 2015 budget, the Ministry programmed to provide textbooks to improve quality of teaching and learning.

The MoE and for that matter the government is still in the process of floating tenders for the procurement of not only dictionaries, but also other textbooks in Mathematics, English, Science and Social Studies.

Dictionaries play a very important role in every language learning context. Ghanaian children are learning English in a second language environment and providing learners with dictionaries at the upper primary and junior high school levels will help them learn the skills of looking up spellings and meanings of words, as well as how words/phrases/idioms etc are used in context.

The last time the Ministry procured dictionaries was in 2005/ 2006, about 11 years ago. The enrolment in 2005/06, according to our records was 3,596,854 whilst enrolment in 2014/15 is 5,785,074, an increase of 2,188,220 pupils thereby creating a gap which the Ministry seeks to address by procuring 2,157,522 dictionaries for the upper primary schools and 1,583,915 dictionaries for junior high schools for distribution to pupils in public schools across the country.

There is no gainsaying that a mastery of language will help children read other subjects with understanding and transition to higher levels of the academic ladder.

The Ministry of Education has a mandate to help develop the human capital of the country and it will not be distracted in providing schools with all the teaching/learning materials that are needed in addition to an enabling environment and highly motivated workforce to carry out this mandate.

On the issue of the so-called “dodgy contract of $44million for the printing of Atlases for basic schools which debt is yet to be paid” the MoE wants to put on record that: The MoE wishes to advise the public to ignore the allegations made by the Daily Guide and at the same time urges the newspaper to spend time to cross check their information from the Ministry’s public relations unit at any time before going to press.

Finally, we legimately demand that the newspaper endeavours to give this rejoinder the same prominence as it gave to their mischievous story.

Signed

Dan Osman Mwin

Head of Public Relations

Ministry of Education