Government in its quest to lessen parents cost at educating their children, has decided to bare the cost of examination. This adds up to a list of other items government has offered to cater for, so as to lessen the burden of Ghanaian parents.
Government is paying the examination fees for each child in the public schools through the capitation grant. Unfortunately, this arrangement has been hit with mixed reactions. While some schools complain of not receiving their capitation, others say the amount allocated for each child is inadequate for a standard examination.
In the Upper East Region for example, some district directorates decided to print the examination papers for schools that had not received their capitation grants which also came with some problems.
To end the problems, some basic school pupils who spoke with A1 Radio in the Bolgatanga Municipality said they would prefer their parents paying their examination fees, like they did in previous years.
According to them, the just ended end of year examination questions that were printed by the various districts directorates of education had many problems including poor printing quality, which made reading difficult thereby affecting their performance.
In their view, if this is what will be happening because government is paying their examination fees, then they will prefer their parents paying, so that their schools can handle their examinations.
“The questions were wrongly set and sub-standard to us. Aside that we started the examination late. I prefer my parents paying for me to write a fairly and standard exams than what we wrote.” One of the pupils said.
Speaking as though they were coached, the basic school pupils kicked against the idea of answering questions from external source, noting that, it would have been fair and easier for them to write the exams, if their teachers were to be the ones to set the questions.
Meanwhile, responding to the issues on A1 Radio, the Bolgatanga Municipal Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers(GNAT), Alhassan Abdul-Latif, also explained that the current happenings in the education sector is something that teachers are not happy about and wish politicians can back off.
“We don’t want political hands to come into the education sector. We are not happy with whatever has happened. I even met with some authorities of the Ghana Education Service and we discussed a number of things. In fact, some of the questions were sub-standard and can’t be used to asses pupils. Can you imagine a question being asked; ‘On which date will school resume?’ And you call such a standard question.” He asked.
He however cautioned authorities of the Ghana Education Service to be mindful that teachers will not accept that arrangement in the 2019-2020 academic year.
“…who is trained to be marking examination papers whilst others are there to be setting questions? The fact is that, for the first time we have forgiven Ghana Education Service, but next time we will not accept such happenings.” He explained.
Source: A1radioonline.com | Moses Apiah | Ghana
