Bishop bemoans fallen standard of Education

The Bishop of Navrongo – Bolgatanga Catholic Diocese, Most Reverend Alfred Agyenta has blamed the fallen standard of education partly on politicization.

The Bishop, who spoke at the 2014 Conference of Directors of Education (CODE), said since the 1980s to 2008 there had not been stability in the education system due to reforms made by politicians.

This, he said, had affected the delivering of coherent and good quality education and accounted for the failure to produce quality human resource leading to mass graduate unemployment.

Most Rev Agyenta mentioned lack of political will, bureaucratic tendencies on the part of education managers, lack of local participation and inactive involvement of parents in the school management system as part of the challenges that accounted for the fallen standards of the education system.

Mass promotion at pre-school level, the Bishop said, was another factor that contributed to the fallen standards and stressed that unless the systems were reversed the situation would not improve.

He therefore appealed to all stakeholders in the education including politicians, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Services, the District Assemblies traditional and religious leaders including parents to play their roles to help reverse the negative trend.

The Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Alex Kyeremeh, appealed to District Assemblies to put up more teachers quarters to help address the lateness and refusal of teachers to go to deprived areas.

He called on the District Directors of Education to ensure efficient monitoring and supervision of teaching and learning in schools and work towards having good cordial working relationship with District Chief Executives and all staff of the district assemblies.

Dr Kyeremeh appealed to Directors to ensure that they abide by the approved fees by the Ministry for senior high schools for the 2014 and 2015 academic year and warned that those who would flout the regulation would not be spared.

The National President of CODE, Mr Osei Kwadwo , said the strategic plan of decentralizing the education system as envisaged and when implemented would help address the challenges facing the education sector.

He gave the assurance that as Directors of Education, they were determined and prepared to work closely with all stakeholders of education to continuously search for good quality education for Ghana.