The general secretary of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Michael Ayuraboya, has bemoaned the excessive politicization of the educational sector in the country.
According to Mr. Ayuraboya, the politics played with Ghana’s educational sector has led it to what he termed as a ‘sorry state’.
In an interview with the media shortly after an event to mark the 25th anniversary celebration of NAGRAT, Mr. Ayuraboya indicated that politicians have hijacked the running of Ghana’s education, implementing policies that are mainly geared towards votes.
He said, “It’s a sorry state. We have to say it as it is. Of course, education will always be a political matter. But it has become an ugly sight. Where instead of looking at what we can do to salvage education, we focus more on what can we get political gain out of it. And that has been very bad for us. Yes, free senior high school is good. We all like free senior high school. But if there are problems, we must fix them. And NAGRAT has never shied away from making our point. Right from the beginning, we insisted that there was a lot to think through and to fix some of the challenges that we have.”
Mr. Ayuraboya indicated that, as teachers are government employees, they can only suggest ways to better the system, and NAGRAT as a teacher union has offered several solutions, but the government decided to ignore them.
He said, “As for us as employees, we are hired. So, if you give us a job to do, you tell us how to do it, we’ll do it for you. Because we’re looking for our pay. But we will tell you that if we do it this way, it will not work. Can we do it the other way? If you do not choose to follow what we are suggesting to you, and you do it your style, the consequences are what we find. Today, see the sorry state of our schools.”
Mr. Ayuraboya criticized how the government handles teaching and learning resources, stating that basic learning materials are not available, yet the government finds it necessary to provide Senior High School students with tablets.
He added that there are no clear directives for the usage of these tablets.
He said, “I cannot understand how critical teaching learning materials are absent in our schools. Yet, we can afford millions of cedis, even dollars, to buy tablets for students. A tablet that will drop. And that ends it. And I hear them say there will no longer be textbooks. Crazy. Ghana hasn’t reached there yet. We are far from there. Technology, yes, is good. But we are not there yet. Hard copy is still very important. So you realize that even when they did the past papers booklets and distributed, they could not retrieve them. How are you going to be retrieving tablets? And if you are not able to retrieve the tablets, are you going to yearly distribute tablets to the students constantly? Do we have the resources, the financial muscles to do the same? It’s not possible. So, with the tablets, we still do not know how it is going to function.”
The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) held its 25th anniversary celebration under the theme ‘The Emergence of NAGRAT: The Beginning of Empowering, Inspiring, and Liberating the Ghanaian Teacher’.
The occasion, which was held at the NAGRAT regional office, was used to officially commission their Upper East Regional Secretariat.
The keynote speaker, Mr. William Atindana, called on teachers to empower and inspire young learners under their care to become responsible citizens.
Source: A1Radioonline.Com|101.1MHZ|Samuel Adagom|Bolgatanga|
