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Deputy Minister for Education in-charge of General Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has taken a swipe at the Mahama government for its inability to complete the 200 senior high school blocks it promised Ghanaians.

According to him, the Mahama government executed the project through a piecemeal approach like a cocoa farmer would build their house.

“The vast majority of it [the 200 school projects], the construction was being done the way my father who was a cocoa farmer built his first house. He started when I was in class one; I had to graduate from university to come and complete it for him. Every year, he gets some money or the cocoa money comes, and he adds a few blocks. That is how we’ve been doing GETFUND construction,” he said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday.

The Mahama government promised to build about 200 new structures to expand facilities and access at the senior high school level.

It was only able put up about 40 of the school blocks, which were christened E-Blocks.

NDC got the formula wrong

Meanwhile, the Deputy Education Minister said although the 200 school blocks was an excellent idea, the NDC’s execution method was wrong.

“The NDC got the formula wrong even though they had a very bright idea,” he said.

According to Dr. Adutwum, because most of the projects were to be funded from GETFUND, the Mahama government could have secured a loan to fund the project.

“If you depend on GETFund to build your infrastructure, it is a good idea but in other jurisdictions, they will look at how GETFund will give them in ten years, borrow against it today, build all the schools within two years and pay it as the GETFund money comes in. That’s what we are going to be doing. In fact, we’ve started the process.”

“The NDC got the formula wrong even though they have a very bright idea. They knew that they will not get the money from the government of Ghana. 23 of the schools, they were able to secure funding from the World Bank. When we came in about 16 had been done and the rest we have completed. It’s left with about two that would not be used this year. The bottom line is that those projects had dedicated funds,” he added.

Double track system

The Deputy Minister made the remark in defense of the Akufo-Addo government’s double-track calendar system for senior high school education.

Government is adopting the double entry at senior high schools in Ghana due to limited infrastructure.

“That is why we are saying that the double track is a stop-gap measure. Within five to seven years everything infrastructure will be developed so that we don’t have to use the double-track,” he added.