Free Basic Education is false - Fiifi Kwetey

Accra, Aug. 20, GNA - Forum for Setting the Records Straight, a unit created by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to correct wrong information on the campaign trail, on Wednesday said the claim by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that education at the basic level was free was false.

"Our investigations have revealed that every school pupil at the basic level fully pays for his school uniform which constitutes, according to the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 1995), 17 per pent of household expenditure on education," he said.

Mr. Fiifi Kwetey, National Propaganda Secretary of the NDC, said this at a press conference by the Forum to set the records straight on NPP's claims regarding the educational sector.

He said every child entering Primary One in the average public school in Accra had to spend about GHC 17 to buy stationery and other materials which are about six times more than the capitation grant. On the School Feeding Programme, Mr. Kwetey said the government's own Preliminary Education Sector Performance Report (2007/2008) stated that only nine per cent of children in public primary schools were benefiting from the programme.

He also referred to the Anamuah-Mensah Committee report on education reforms submitted in 2002 saying the government was advised by the committee not to change the education system.

"One whole academic year after the introduction of the reform, neither the syllabus nor a single textbook is available to students," he said.

Mr. Kwetey noted that the only reform that took place was the change of name "which is more important to the government than quality of the education to be provided".

He said while government was boasting about unprecedented levels of enrolment in schools, the reality was that in the year 2006, 66 per cent of all Senior Secondary School students who sat the Senior Secondary School Certificate Exams (SSSCE) failed with that of 2007 being 60 per cent.

Mr Kwetey added that evidence showed that the quality of education was dropping, but the government was talking about quantitative increment.

He said an illustration of the level of education infrastructure the government had provided over the last eight years vis-a-vis the government of the NDC showed beyond doubt that the NDC had outperformed the NPP in spite of the heavy foreign inflows since 2001.