Former Education Minister, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman has reacted to comments from her colleague educationist, Prof. Steve Adei suggesting that the ‘200-Day schools’ initiative implemented by the erstwhile Mahama administration was a completely useless one.
Defending her administration on the ’21 Minutes with KKB’ show, she maintained that every investment in education, regardless of how minute or big it is, can never be considered useless especially because education is the backbone of every country’s development.
Prof. Adei made earlier suggestions to the effect that the decision by the Mahama government to put up some 200 community day senior high schools was a useless one considering that the only beneficiaries of the vision were the contractors who put up the said facilities and not Ghanaians.
According to the educationist, situating most of these secondary schools in the hinterlands particularly was pointless since there were no hostel or boarding facilities available to students and teachers making it difficult for any of those schools in such obscure locations in rural Ghana to attract the needed numbers [1,500] to fully make use of the facilities.
“They are only useful for urban areas. All that they have put in the villages are going to be useless...they are useless. To transport 1,500 people within, you have to go about 30 km in order to fill them without any boarding, without any teachers' bungalows, nothing? How can you do so?”, he said earlier on the show.
But Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman flawed his suggestions, maintaining that the day schools were built to ease the burden of paying boarding fees and other costs on parents and to allow for more people to have access to secondary education without prohibitions.
“I don’t see how any investment in education can be useless, I think investment in education is good….. The focus was on Community Day schools for the reason that if you look at any child’s bills from the senior secondary schools, you’ll notice that the boarding was the highest and that was also the reason that somebody might or might not go to school”, she explained.
“We argue that it would be nice for anyone to be in boarding school but that wasn’t the reason why they shouldn’t go to school at all. In so far as the person has been able to go to a day junior high school, the junior high school is still secondary. So you’ve done half as a day student, it ought to be possible for this person to complete it in the day system rather than not go to school at all and it is not just the fees, all the preparations that the parents must make provisions for and all of this was prohibited to a lot of our people so the plan was to try to remove the cost barriers to senior secondary education and that’s why we thought about day schools first”, she added
Source: Ghanaweb.com
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The long and short of this debate is that yes we need the community day schools in order to save on boarding costs but in the hinterland we should have constructed smaller but more of the units and closer to the communities. Let’s reason together and stop the politics. Oh Ghana.
Dirty faced Akim ***barred word*** Prof Adjei will always talk none sense so why response to this ***barred word*** . My respected Mame Jane do not waste your time on PiGS who are only fit for the grave very soon
Peace FM, you can choose not to publish anything about NDC. Why are you not publishing the two comments that we have sent? Don't be silly you are biased. If you don't publish it, there is another platform to comment. NDC IS A FORGOTTEN HISTORY. WITH GHANA CARD, THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RIG. ONE-MAN PARTY CAN NEVER SURVUVE EXPECIALLY WHEN THE FOUNDER HAS BEEN EXCLUDED.
it is amazing how myopic some people are. The E blocks in the ***barred word***? Seriously Prof Adei can do better than that. in any case nothing stops the NPP from adding boarding houses to the E blocks. This is what i expect Prof Adei to be telling the NPP. Is NAPO saying the NPP would not leave a debt at the Education Ministry when NPP happens to be voted out of power. Why do we say and do things as if we have not been properly schooled and that there is no tomorrow.
My brother leave these super-incompetent, good for nothing bunch of seriously youseless bunch i dont know what am doing confused people....only seeking to divert attention from their failures.
People with parochial mindset are against the siting of those E-Blocks in the "***barred word***". I am surprised people are not forward looking at all. The location or siting of Achimota School, was it not the OUTSKIRTS of Accra? Who told you Adisadel College was located in the middle of Cape Coast? Even University of Ghana, Legon was outside Accra. I remember vividly when I was in the secondary school about 3 decades ago, news items refer to Legon as "NEAR Accra". But as time goes on communities sprung up around the schools to develop them as we see today. Prof. Adei, I believe it was only recently that GIMPA has been surrounded by communities. It was part of the Achimota Forest. Even where you located your school at Dodowa, would you say because it is on the outskirts of Dodowa and therefore ***barred word***? Posterity will vindicate you Prof. Agyeman. Leave that little boy who does not understand education.
MAAME JANE THE BEST THING YOU COULD HAVE DONE WAS TO BUILD THOSE BUILDINGS ON BIG SCHOOLS THAT HAVE ENOUGH LAND.BUILDING THOSE SCHOOLS IN THE HINTER LAND WAS WASTE OF MONEY.YOU NEVER PROVIDED TRANSPORT FOR THE STUDENTS, NO TEACHERS BUNGALOW.THE ENVIRONMENT WAS ALSO BAD, NO ACCESS ROADS, NO WATER NO GOOD TOILET FACILITY AND A LOT HOW CAN YOU CALL THIS A COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL.
So couldn't you have expanded the already existing ones with large lands not utilized? Oh madam did you do a survey to ascertain whether you should have built these Mahama schools at all these bushy location?
Prof. Naana Jane I respect u so much. Your calm nature in addressing issue without insult is appreciated. Am not suprised that the so called school in bushes according to Deputy Education Minister, 13 of them are ready for use for the free SHS. What an Irony. God is watching all of us.
Ojam, Are you sure Ghanaians won't bring NDC back to governance?