Deputy Ranking Member on Education Committee of Parliament, Dr Clement Apaak has charged government to furnish Ghanaians with details on when approved textbooks would be made available for use by students and teachers, after the implementation of the Standard-Based Curriculum.
According to him, despite two years of implementing the new Standards-Based Curriculum to improve the sector, pupils and teachers are yet to get hold of textbooks to advance their studies and that is affecting them negatively.
The situation, he said brings tears to his eyes, and often compelled him to draw conclusions that the government lacked the ingenuity to solve it.
“No textbooks in our public basic schools two years after the implementation of the new Standards-Based, yet we claim to be implementing a Standard-Based curriculum?” he quizzed.
Dr Apaak who’s also a Member of Parliament for Builsa South, speaking to Samuel Mbura on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East, said the handling of the education sector by the current administration is a shame.
He said “we don’t know exactly when Public Basic Schools will reopen. Today, January 10, 2022, Private Basic schools have reopened. When will Public Basic schools reopen? We need to know. Also, 44,000 teachers out of 284,000 Basic school teachers left the teaching profession in 2021 alone. This is 15%, the highest in 20 years. Why did they walk away from the classroom, and how soon will they be replaced?”
Touching on Capitation Grant, he said “…is in arrears for Four Tranches (2 each for 2019/2020 & 2020/2021 academic years). Because of this, Heads [of public schools] borrowed to keep the schools running because that’s the only source of income to Basic schools. When will the arrears be paid?”
A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Moses Apiah|Ghana
