Education is my priority – Nana Addo reaffirms commitment

..... in the wake of poor BECE results

The 2012 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has stated that the results of Junior High School students who sat for the recent Basic Education Certificate Examination give credence to why “I have made education, education, education, a high priority of an Akufo-Addo administration.”

According to the NPP flagbearer, “this year’s BECE results are at best, negatively, consistent with the results of previous years, except we have more people failing this year, and facing a very bleak future prospect.”

In an exclusive interview with the New Crusading Guide, Nana Addo lamented what he sees as a lack of commitment from the authorities to take decisive action against this phenomenon of high failure rates.

“We are making no progress at this level, the basic level, which to me is the most important level of a child’s development. It appears clearly that our Junior High School system is failing our kids and we need a government that can put a lot more meaningful emphasis on improving standards at that level.”

The NPP flagbearer disclosed this in interview with the New Crusading Guide.

Nana Addo says, “We need to give our children quality education and we need to give our children the needed skills for the job market. The number of children who have been failed by the educational system over the years and those who continue to be failed by the system require that we approach the prevailing crisis with a two-prong solution: quality education and skills acquisition.”

Nana Addo continued, “I mean access to quality education for every Ghanaian child. As a country we should also focus more on reforming and expanding, significantly,  the vocational and technical aspects of our education system.”

He explains further, “This is necessary in order to create the necessary skills for the industrialisation project, which in my opinion, is the most important project for any government worth its stewardship.”

Nana Addo says his programme for Ghana, if elected, he would use his period in office to change the structure of the economy, from producer of raw materials, to an industrialised economy.

But, “we need an educated and skilled workforce to make it happen that is why I have made education, skills and industrialisation for jobs” my main campaign message.

Explaining his point, Nana Addo stated that the adoption and application of science and technology, not only to our educational system but to our businesses, especially the small and medium scale enterprises, is the way forward.

“It is through this value addition component of our economy that we can create the desired numbers of decent jobs with decent pay for our people which will subsequently raise the necessary income, as well as taxes, to provide an effective public service sector for our nation and also ensure guarantee prosperity for every Ghanaian”, Nana Addo added.

When asked what he would do differently to ensure his vision is realised, Nana Addo stated that basic school would be expanded from the JHS level to the SHS level. Nana Addo reiterated his commitment of making SHS free for every child within the first four years of his administration.

“Making SHS free will increase enrolment. The focus, however, is not only on increasing enrolment, but on providing quality education for every child no matter where the child lives in Ghana,” Nana Addo said.

He says, his Education Policy carries the theme ‘Teacher First’, because the quest for quality education will remain elusive unless the situation of teaching and the teacher is resolved comprehensively.

The NPP flag bearer spelt out what he describes as the tried and tested three R’s namely – Recruitment, Retention and Retraining.

For example, statistic shows that there is a shortage of about 24,000 teachers in Ghana’s educational system.

“We need to make it attractive to recruit more teachers and train more people to give our children quality education. Teaching shouldn’t be the last option for our students who pass out from school in search of jobs. We are committed to this because it is at the foundation of the kind of prosperous Ghana we want to build.”

The NPP is committed to using a significant amount of Ghana’s oil proceeds for education. “Since education is critical to industrialisation, we see education as a capital investment. We will, therefore, spend responsibly and courageously on education”.

The NPP flagbearer says this will result in the expansion of training facilities for the training of more teachers “because if we’re going to have more students at the secondary level, then we’ll need more teachers.

“If we’re to give better education to our children, then we have to retain them in the classrooms. Retention of teachers will mean we will have to improve their conditions of service.”

He says the NPP will not compromise on the critical issue of quality education. “The sort of quality education that allows a poor child from Moseoso in Atiwa, to get the opportunity to study in Yale and subsequently become the first presiding bishop of the Methodist Church of Ghana, is what we would want for every Ghanaian child of the 21st Century,” he looks back, with reference to the Most Rev. Dr. Asante Antwi, who launched his autobiography yesterday.

The NPP flagbearer launched the book at the Trinity College, Legon. The autobiography, ‘Samuel Asante Antwi - Living Story’ , in Nana Addo’s words,  is a is “a 160-page story of perseverance, hard work, culture, history, patriotism, Christian teachings and success. It is a story of what should be possible today and what was possible even for a poor, village boy in colonial, pre-independence Ghana.”

He continued on Rev Dr Asante Antwi, “The story of his life, depicting his rise through a society of limited opportunities but great aspirations to becoming the First Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Ghana, can be best summed up in the words of the great founder of Methodism, John Wesley: Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.”

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