RE: Your donation was unnecessary - Education Ministry to private schools

I read with utter shock and ire, a publication on the GhanaWeb of 1st May 2020 attributed to the Director of Communications of the Ministry of Education (MoE), Mr. Vincent Ekow Assafuah based on an interview on Kasapa 102.5 FM.

One would have treated with contempt, the views professed in the write-up had it emanated from a street drunk who, having won a drinking bout, exercises his freedom of speech in the market square. But coming from the mouthpiece of the Education Ministry, the unguarded comments of Mr. Ekow Assafuah cannot be glossed over.

How can anyone justify the fact that a spokesperson of no less a ministry than education would pour cold water on private schools’ laudable initiative to assist Government’s efforts at harnessing resources to fight this anathema of our time, the COVID-19 virus? Is it not ironic that while the Minister of Health who received the fifty thousand Ghana cedis (GH¢50,000.00) donation, and the Government’s Official Spokesman, the Information Minister, applauded the kind gesture of private schools, the MoE mouthpiece finds it a needless initiative? How can someone who is paid with the taxpayers’ money to promote the growth of education in Ghana seeks to thwart His Excellency President Akuffo Addo’s bold attempts to rein in this virus?

What was the thrust of Mr. Ekow Assafuah’s argument? That the donation was a misplaced priority since the money could have been used to support individual member institutions of GNAPS. Is he saying that the President’s plea for donations into the Fund was directed at only corporate organisations and institutions which are not encountering any challenges? And by the way, which organization or institution in Ghana today is not adversely affected by this pandemic? Yet many establishments are falling over one another to donate their widow’s mite.

For Mr. Ekow Assafuah’s information, it is not only the wealthy who are called upon to perform acts of charity. God appreciates the sacrifice of the poor and needy more than the so-called rich and wealthy. The Holy Bible tells of a poor widow who, in the midst huge donations from rich people into the treasury of the temple, put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his

disciples to himself, Jesus said to them, “… this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood” (Mark 12:41-44, Luke 21:1-4).

Yes, private schools need tons of assistance from Government in order to pay their teachers, service loans that some proprietors collected and meet operational costs. But this will not prevent GNAPS from contributing its mite to find a solution to this pandemic which has led to closure of our schools and rendered many teachers temporarily jobless. After all, the sooner this virus is reined in, the better for businesses including private schools. This explains why nearly 1,500 school proprietors queued up to donate various sums of monies which culminated in the fifty thousand Ghana cedis (GH¢50,000.00) which went into the COVID-19 Fund.

Indeed, GNAPS is poised to assist Government financially, materially and through education of parents and school children in order to combat this pandemic. The Association will not shy away from its corporate social responsibilities whether some public servants like it or not.

DR. DAMASUS TUUROSONG

(PRESIDENT, AG.)