Media urged to help promote quality education in Ghana

Mr Eric Duorinaah, a Team Leader of the Harnessing Youth Talents for Rural Development (HAYTAFORD) has urged the media to give more attention to the promotion of quality education in Ghana.

He said the media had a crucial role to play to ensure accountability and transparency on behalf of the voiceless in society to help enhance quality education within the education sector.

Mr. Duorinaah made the appeal at a media engagement forum to find effective ways of ensuring accountability and transparency in schools in the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions to improve quality education.

The Northern Network for Education Development (NNED) and HAYTAFORD organised the forum for journalists and media practitioners in the Upper West Region with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Mr Duorinaah said though there had been an improvement in access to education which had increased school enrollment over the years, quality teaching and learning still remained a challenge and needed collective efforts from stakeholders to address.

He explained that ensuring quality education depended on accountability and transparency from stakeholders in making information relating to education relevant, timely and accessible by students, as well as teachers and other key players in education.

Mr Yelewere Vitus Domevi, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of NNED said it was implementing the USAID Ghana Partnership for Education: Promoting Transparency and Accountability in Education (PTAE) project to promote quality education.

He explained that the project was to be implemented in 25 districts in Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions between the periods of September 2016 to September 2017.

Mr Domevi who presented a baseline report on a survey conducted by NNED on the effective management of education resources recommended that the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education ought to ensure effective project supervision and monitoring to maximise education resources.

“The Ministry of Education and local government authorities should constantly expand school infrastructure in respond to increase enrollment to deal with the challenge of overcrowding in classrooms”, he said.

Mr Domevi also urged civil society organisations to deepen collaboration with donor agencies and the government to ensure effective project implementation in communities and promote accountability of teachers to parents and their wards.

He called on parents to serve as watchdogs on teachers to promote accountability and transparency among school authorities.

Mr Domevi also urged community members to support school authorities in their quest to sustain the successes the schools had chalked.