By: Sefah-Danquah
The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee and Member of Parliament for Akatsi North Constituency has rubbished claims by the NPP government that they are concerned about the country’s education. According to the legislator, everything points to the fact that the current government has not prioritized education as it claims.
Nortsue-Kotoe has however questioned the government’s rhetoric of investing in education saying nothing really shows. In an interview on the #HMS, Ghana’s most listened-to morning, he quizzed why the government owes so much to suppliers of key educational logistics.
“As we speak now, they (government) owe monies to those who supplied school uniforms, two to three years ago to senior high school students; they owe monies to people who supplied textbooks to senior high schools; they owe people who supplied furniture to senior high schools. So what are they trying to say?” He quipped. The Akatsi North legislator also revealed the government still owed money to people who supplied food items for two years.
The current situation paints a very gloomy picture about Ghana’s education, he said, and believes the situation does not reflect the claims being made by the government. Conditions at some basic schools in the country, Mr. Nortsu-Kotoe shares are despicable, to say the least. “If you go to our basic schools, nothing interesting is happening there because there are no textbooks and materials for teaching and learning are not there. Furniture is not there and you happen to see children prostrating on the floors to write”, the legislator shared.
The troubling situation, he says, has manifested in the arrears the government owes to the West African Examination Council.
“If we (the minority/committee) had not spoken in the last three weeks, I don’t think if the Ghc47 million would have been disbursed to WAEC for them to carry out their mandate. It is quite clear that the Finance Ministry and the government do not care”
“The delays in the disbursement of funds to the West African Examination Council are largely due to the lack of priority given to education by this government. They are not interested in the welfare of anybody except themselves. And so whether WAEC conducts examinations or not, the government does not care at all. The government considers paying WAEC arrears owed as a misplaced priority”, he intimated.
The West African Examination Council, in his view, should be exonerated in this case. “WAEC has always been proactive, it is the government that does not care about basic education. WAEC prepares budget on time. They meet with all key stakeholders. During the budget preparation, WAEC meets with the Education Committee in parliament, they share with the committee the total number of pupils/students that are likely to write exams, both the Basic Education Certificate Examination and West African Secondary School Certificate Examination based on the information given to them by the Ghana Education Service. The Education Committee of Parliament sits down with WAEC and inquires how much they are going to charge per candidate for the BECE or the WASSCE. When that is agreed then the charge per unit is multiplied by the total number of candidates likely to sit for the two examinations to arrive at a specific figure” the legislator explained.
Timelines for disbursements are also agreed on during these budget session meetings. Hon. Nortsu-Kotoe says it baffles him why there are delays.
According to him, the reason for the delay could not largely be attributed to lack of funds but rather education not being a priority for this government.
Sefah-Danquah.