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A former Director General of the Ghana Education Service, Charles Aheto Tsegah has stated that Ghana’s position on the global school rankings is not surprising.

“I don’t know why it is being made to sound like it is news. It is not news. It is something that is known…” said Mr. Tsegah

The Organisation for Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) global school rankings which is considered the biggest in the world analyzed 76 countries and put Asian countries in the top five spots and Ghana and other African countries at the bottom.  

Speaking on Citi FM ‘s News Analysis Programme, The Big Issue, Mr. Tsegah admitted that Ghana’s educational system has indeed deteriorated over the years, saying “some 12 years on we have deteriorated in terms of how we are teaching Maths and Science.”

Mr. Tsegah attributed Ghana’s position  to what he described as “significant challenges” that are hindering the delivery of quality education in the country.

“All of us are also aware that even when you come locally, significant challenges to the process of delivering education, have contributed in huge measure to some levels of poor quality in terms of the services that we are providing for our teachers.”

He however  revealed that the Ministry of Education in conjunction with government are undertaking programmes that will “reverse some of those significant challenges”

Ghana hasn’t always been last


Mr. Tsegah posited that Ghana’s performance in the previous years had been very good.

“We have not always been last. In fact the first time we entered the assessment, we floored South Africa…”

Mr. Tsegah remarked that government and the Ministry of Education had learnt lessons from the assessment, adding that it had created an avenue for Ghana to provide a certain comparability in terms of educational attainment and to assess its performance locally.

Suggestions for improvement

Mr. Tsegah advised the Ghana Education Service(GES) to do more in terms of training teachers as well as improve the manner in which Maths and Science lessons are delivered.

“We need to do a little bit more in terms of how we train our teachers and in terms of how even we even deliver the lessons in terms of Maths and Science.”