The Minister responsible for Primary, Secondary and Girl-Child Education, Miss Christine Churcher, has said that the government has initiated a policy to guarantee 550 post-Junior Secondary School graduates scholarship to the best secondary schools in the country every year.
She was speaking at the launching of the programme of activities to mark the 40th anniversary of Ofori Panin Secondary School at the weekend in Accra. She said that the government was implementing this policy to demonstrate its commitment to making education a success and beneficial to every Ghanaian child.
The government believes that the objectives set in the development agenda of the country would be achieved if education is given a high priority by every citizen, she said, adding that the government was determined to make this dream a reality.
The Minister said that due to the disparity in the quality of education in the urban and rural schools, students in the deprived communities could not get the required aggregate needed to enter the best schools in the country. As a result, such communities are left out in terms of the pursuit of quality education.
Miss Churcher said that it was in view of this that the government decided to award scholarships to the best five JSS students from each district to pursue their education in one of the SSS of their choice.
She called for "equal opportunity to quality education regardless of the child's gender or social class of origin."
The Minister explained that the scholarships would be given to needy but brilliant students in the districts. She lamented the criteria of selecting students, that guarantees good schools and scholarships for the wards of the rich to the detriment of students from poor homes who are bright and need such facilities.
For the betterment of the planned policy, she said, her ministry has started a tour of the ten regions with the focus on underprivileged communities. The team would visit only the poor schools in those communities to assess their problems, and negotiate with the stakeholders on how best to improve upon the quality of education in the affected communities.
Miss Churcher assured teachers that the government was preparing an attractive package that would encourage them to accept postings to rural communities.
Reacting to the poor performance of some pupils in some rural schools, Mrs. Churcher blamed some teachers saying, "some teachers apparently refuse to stay in the classroom, and only show up when Education Officers are paying visits to the school."
To effectively monitor teachers, the Minister said that, the government plans to supply vehicles to Education Units in the various districts for supervisors to undertake their monitoring task.
