A Deputy Ranking Member, Education Committee of Parliament, Dr Clement Apaak has questioned the Minister of Education, Yaw Adutwum’s knowledge of the criteria for school categorization.
According to the legislator for Builsa South constituency, the Minister should address the factors that make a school grade ‘A’ and another grade ‘C’, rather than focus on affiliations.
He said “it is expected that the grade ‘A’ schools will provide mentorship to the grade ‘C’ schools, and the grade ‘C’ schools will imbibe best practices from the grade ‘A’ schools. The proposed method of addressing underperformance in schools classified as grade ‘C’ has been badly exposed by some of the very variables used to differentiate between a grade ‘A’ and a grade ‘C’ school. The criteria or indicators used include whether or not a school enjoys the best or worse of the following: 1) Subscription (CSSPS); 2) Infrastructure; 3) WASSCE pass rate; 4) Location; and 5) Enrolment.”
It could be recalled that the Ministry of Education held a stakeholder consultative meeting a few days ago to assess the performance of students and deliberate on ways to address some challenges affecting the Free Senior High School Programme where proposals were made to introduce a policy that will associate all lower-performing senior high schools to grade “A” schools.
The Sector Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum, the explanation was that the initiative was to imbibe the principles of the grade ‘A’ schools into the grade “C” schools to improve their academic performance.
“Invariably, when we are opening new schools, we don’t look at how we can partner the new schools with existing high performing schools. For instance, you may have T.I. Ahmadiyya school in other towns across the country, but we all know the one with distinction is what is located in Kumasi”, he added.
But in reaction, Dr Apaak thought otherwise, saying “We have a fundamentally huge problem at hand in our grade ‘C’ Senior High Schools which demands our urgent attention. Unfortunately, the Minister for Education has chosen a rather surfaced effort to attempt addressing a deep issue that requires serious intervention.”
He explained that undeniably, the adoption of best practices was necessary for institutional growth however, the best approach, is “to dealing with underperformance in less-endowed Senior High Schools by mere affiliation with grade or category ‘A’ schools, without dealing with the fundamental challenges, will not work”.
“The fundamentals in grade ‘C’ schools ought to be in place first before trying to incorporate best practices from the grade ‘A’ schools. The conditions present in grade ‘A’ schools ought to be replicated in grade ‘C’ schools to make indoctrination of the practices in the performing schools possible. What is mentoring going to do when the conditions are not right in the grade ‘C’ schools? Is the Minister for Education saying he does not know why some schools are not performing? If a school is non-performing because of no science laboratory, no computer laboratory, no library, no teachers for core subjects, no accommodation to attract teachers, and no transport for the head and the school, among others, how does affiliation to a grade ‘A’ school solve these problems and raise the standard of performance?”, he asked.
Stressing that “Quite clearly, my former school, Sandema Senior High Technical School, lacking necessities like well-equipped science and computer laboratories, well-stocked library, adequate students and teachers accommodation, adequate textbooks, adequate teachers, can not just by affiliation and mentorship perform like Prempeh College or Wesley Girls. To be blunt about it, if the Minister moves the entire academic and non-teaching staff from a grade ‘C’ to a grade ‘A’ school, nothing will change in the grade ‘C’ school on their return, if they do not have the conditions and facilities in the grade ‘A’ school they went to for mentoring and to imbibe best practices.”
He, therefore, noted that “The provision of adequate infrastructure, well-equipped laboratories (Science and Computer), well-stocked libraries, textbooks, adequate teachers for all subjects, and adequate furniture, will remedy the underperformance in grade ‘C’ schools. Affiliation and mentorship alone will not change the plight of grade ‘C’ schools.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Moses Apiah|Bolgatanga|Ghana
