NAGRAT calls for quality education

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) Ghana has appealed to government and global leaders, particularly African leaders, to ensure quality education after 2015.

NAGRAT’s call comes just days after a whopping 72% of SHS students failed in this year’s West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The President of NAGRAT, Christian Addai-Poku, who made the call at a colloquium organized by the association in collaboration with Citi Fm, an Accra-based radio under the theme, ‘The Sound of Silence. The Exclusion of Quality Education in the Millennium Development Goals’ said world leaders have not paid much attention to quality education.

The purpose of the colloquium was to bring to draw attention to the fact that targets for the existing MDGs did not include quality of education and that primary school could not be a terminal point for education if it was to help eliminate the worst form of poverty that the MDGs seek to achieve,” he said.

According to him, instead of focusing on the quality of education being provided to students, leaders around the world were preoccupied with how they could make education more accessible and affordable for all.

“Years after the millennium declaration, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in enrolment, especially in Ghanaian schools, and this is quite commendable. Unfortunately, the issue of quality has not been a major part of all these undertakings,” he said.

Mr. Addai-Poku observed that “consequently while the world continues to boast of getting children of school going age into schools, we also look back with regret that the majority of these students come out of schools not transformed in any way.”

“NAGRAT, like many, believes that education can only be a public good if no compromises are permitted in terms of quality,” he said.

For him, quality education could be improved with the provision of quality teachers, learning tools and conducive environment.

“As the world meets in September, this year to craft the Post 2015 millennium declarations, we will implore the government of Ghana to put forth or support a proposal that will have a strong presence of quality in its architecture,” he said.

Dr. Augustine Tawiah, an educationist, called for a paradigm shift in the provision of quality education.

The Minister of Education, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, in a speech, stated that efforts must be made to achieve quality education for all in the sub-region.

Critics have blamed Prof Opoku-Agyemang for not working hard to improve the country’s educational system.

The Minister stated that the UN has not made any significant contributions to help Sub-Saharan countries to meet the MDGs by 2015.