RTI Commission fines Education Ministry GHC50k for refusing EduWatch access to SHS placement info

The Right to Information (RTI) Commission has fined the Minister of Education GHC50,000 for denying the education think tank Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) access to information on the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).

According to EduWatch, the RTI commission also ordered the Ministry to immediately make the information it requested available.

In a tweet shared on March 1, 2023, the think tank urged the Minister of Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum, to release the information requested for the sake of transparency and accountability.

"@moegovgh must open the civic space to enable Civil Society participate in accountability advocacy to improve quality & efficiency of educ service delivery. Without information, this is impossible. Hon. @yoadutwum must embrace transparency in govt's educ transformation agenda," parts of the tweet read.

The tweet also had a flyer which read in part: "The Right To Information Commission has fined the Ministry of Education GHC 50,000 for refusing to release information on SHS placement to EduWatch in June 2022. The Commission has subsequently ordered the Ministry to immediately provide the information to EduWatch in line with the RTI Law. The Ministry had previously refused EduWatch info on the Teacher Laptop deal and the controversial calculator contract".

It is unclear what specific Senior High School placement information the Education Ministry denied EduWatch, but the Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has been accused of protecting staff at his Ministry who took GHC7000 for a school placement.

According to the Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Dr. Clement Apaak, a report by a committee set up by the Education Ministry to investigate the incident showed that someone used the minister's PIN code to illegally place a student in a grade A Senior High School.

Dr Apaak, who made these remarks in a Neat FM interview monitored by GhanaWeb, added that Adutwum admitted to sharing his pin with some of his staff for the placement but failed to disclose the identity of the person who made the said placement.

View the tweet by EduWatch below:

@moegovgh must open the civic space to enable Civil Society participate in accountability advocacy to improve quality & efficiency of educ service delivery. Without information, this is impossible. Hon. @yoadutwum must embrace transparency in gov’ts educ transformation agenda. pic.twitter.com/eSuWMPgulE

— Eduwatch (@AfricaEduWatch) March 1, 2023

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