The Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Bortianor Ngleshie Amanfro, Mr. Adamu Ekililu has called on the members of the NDC to keep their mouths shut when it comes to issues regarding text books for students.
According to him, the NDC and its allies have nothing meaningful to say on text books since they have failed woefully in the education sector.
He said the NDC during their term in office could not even provide chalk to pupils, hence they must always “shut their mouths” when meaningful contributions are being made in that sector.
“The NDC that could not even provide chalk upon which the First Lady had to insult teachers for asking for chalk. Such party should not have the moral grounds to criticize NPP,” he cautioned.
Government introduced the New Standard Based Curriculum to basic schools in Ghana in 2019 and Text books have become very topical because its availability has been challenging to most schools in Ghana.
This led most school to resort to using online and other improvised ways of teaching.
During its visit to some schools in the central region, the Assurance Committee of Parliament confirmed that they schools have most of the electives subject, including science, maths and English whiles other also confirmed that they do not have some at all.
For instance, at the Osubonpanyin Ateitu M/A Basic School in Winneba, the Head teacher, Catherine Bentum, told the committee that the school had received the full set of Mathematics, English and Science textbooks.
The Minister of Education Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, said there were enough textbooks and copies for all regions and said the ministry was working with the Regional Heads of Stores to correct the deficit.
“We have procured enough textbooks for all subjects to go round all the schools. What is left is for the Regional Stores to ensure that every school with a shortfall receives the extra textbooks they need,” he said.
In the Central Region the school also complained about the fact that from the district to the regional capital, it becomes difficult for them to move the books from the regional stores to their schools.
The Awutu Senya East Municipal Director of Education, Faustina Alimatu Braimah, told the committee that the GES in Accra first delivered the textbooks to the Central Regional Depot in Cape Coast, where the municipal directorate sent vehicles to pick them up to Kasoa for distribution to schools, based on enrolment.
The municipal education She described the process of sending vehicles to pick up the books as not only cumbersome but costly to the directorate which operated on an annual budget of GH¢3,000.
“We cannot cart all the textbooks at a go because our vehicles are small and sometimes, we have to rent cars to go and bring them from Cape Coast for distribution,” she said.
As an interim measure to overcome the bottleneck, Dr Adutwum said he had engaged GhanaPost and another courier service to ensure that the books were delivered quickly to places where they were in short supply.
“The engagement with GhanaPost is to ensure that the books are distributed immediately while a more permanent way is found to distribute textbooks to the schools from the regional stores,” the minister said, stressing that it was not right for the books to remain at the regional depots when the schools needed them.
The Youth Organizer who is also an educationist said most school have text books and, in the instance, where any school doesn’t have a text book, that could be pupils text books.
“But all the schools have text books for teachers and teachers guide,” he said.
He called on teachers to improvise either than waiting for government at all time for solutions, saying that “Every teacher was given a learner pack that contains everything that should be learnt by pupils. Most of the topics in the new curriculum were drawn from the old curriculum so in the absence of the textbooks, references can be made from the old text books. That is what I referred to as improvisation” he stated in an interview with TV Africa.
Mr. Adamu Ekililu who is also a Procurement Consultant suggested that, GES should think of having a satellite store to cater for the district far away from the district capital.
He also suggested that, the stores department could get the enrolment of every district and deliver the books to the district directly whiles it moves the books from Accra instead of sending that books to cape coast before the district will have to also spend additional money to pick the books from the regional capital
“It is not so difficult to get the enrolment of each district and as an inventory manager at the Regional stores, you can make arrangements with the various school so that they can pick the books whiles on its way to your warehouse,” he said