Mahama's 4-years provided quality, equitable, accessible & stronger education - Former Minister

Former Education Minister, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, has issued a detailed publication dubbed, ‘’Four Years of Equitable Access to Quality Education (2013-2016)’ to highlight the achievements of the former Mahama led administration.

The publication dwells largely on the achievements of the NDC from 2013-2016 in the areas of education management and administration, basic education, secondary education, non-formal education, technical, vocational education and training, inclusive and special training and tertiary education.

In the area of Accelerated ICT Education and in the bid to improve upon ICT at the basic level, 81,000 basic school teachers were trained to enable them acquire the requisite skills in the use of ICT in teaching and learning.

A total of 54,500 laptops were procured and distributed to basic school teachers and 60,000 laptop computers were distributed to public schools across the country, the publication noted.

The publication also touted the passage of bills that were designed to respond to the ‘’challenging dynamics in professional education, education sector decentralization, book development, adult education, tertiary and vocational education, The bills passed and assented to by Mr. Mahama included:

Technical University Act, Act, 2016 (Act 992),

University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD),

Chartered Institute of Taxation Act, 2016,

The National Commission for Tertiary Education Bill,

National Accreditation and Qualification Authority Bills, 2015,

Ghana Book Development Council Bill and The Chartered Institute of Bankers Bill, 2015.

To facilitate the management of education delivery the Mahama led administration procured and distributed 500 vehicles to the educational institutions-senior high schools, universities, colleges of education and polytechnics, the former minister stated.

Under the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD), the Mahama led administration rehabilitated 345 KG classrooms, constructed 1,347 KG blocks and provision of 1,875 KG tables and chairs.

The publication also touched on the expansion of government’s social intervention programmes with the introduction of free footwear for needy pupils, distribution of 787,485 school uniforms to pupils in public in selected deprived communities.

It further touched on the total amount of GHc95.2million released in the 2012/2013 academic year across the country for the payment of capitation grant adding, over 5.5 million pupils in 38,714 public basic schools are benefiting from the capitation grant.

According to her, an amount of GHc 61.3million was spent subsidize the cost of registration for 1,651,687 candidates for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

The move she noted increased GHc 14.0 per candidate in 2010 to GHc 44.10 in 2016, ‘’while at the same time the total number of candidates increased from 350,000 to 460,900.

The former administration also completed 1,129 classroom blocks, 739 toilet blocks, 73 teacher accommodation blocks, 472 urinals, 622 schools (rehabilitated) and 82 boreholes.

A total of 12.8 million core text books, 2.5 million dictionaries were procured and distributed under Mahama.

Aside that, 472,800 teachers’ notebooks, 653,700 class attendance registers and 4,994,328 boxes of white chalk and 180,000 boxes of coloured chalk were also distributed.

‘’The number of primary schools has increased by 24.9 percent from 17,881 in 2008/09 to 22,335 in 2015/16. Similarly, enrolment in primary schools increased from 3.7 million to 4.3 million,’’ the publication said.