NPP manifesto is realistic - Amponsah-Bediako

Wa (U/W), Nov. 22, GNA - Mr Kofi Amponsah-Bediako, Assistant Government Spokesman on Social Services, has described the recently launched New Patriotic Party (NPP) 2004 Manifesto as realistic in its approach to mobilising resources for the development of the country. He said even though attention would still be paid to sound macro-economic management, emphasis would also be placed on more micro-economic interventions that would be shaped in consultations with the private sector.

He said sound economic management was what the country needed now for an accelerated growth and a higher standard of living. Mr Amponsah-Bediako was speaking to the Ghana News Agency at Wa on Monday.

On education, the Assistant Government Spokesman said without a result-oriented training programme that was relevant to the needs of the country, Ghana could not achieve her dream of wealth creation. This, he said, explained why the NPP Administration in recognising education as a cornerstone of wealth creation, had decided to bring in the necessary reforms to make manpower development appropriate and relevant to national needs.

Mr Amponsah-Bediako stressed that it was for this reason that any nation that failed to realise the importance of quality and relevant education to the growth and development of her citizens could not achieve much in the area of wealth creation.

He said the educational reform was aimed at changing the imbalance between general education, on one hand, and technical, agricultural and vocational training on the other, pointing out that such a balance was what was needed to ensure effective development of various latent skills, for the transformation of the fortunes of the country from one of poverty and squalor to that of wealth creation and satisfactory standard of living.

He said it was sad after nearly five decades of independence, the country continued to depend on an educational system that had failed to meet the needs of the people, resulting in production of scholars or trainees whose relevance to national development could not be considered as the best.