The Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Prof George Kwaku Oduro has underscored the need for government to consider the socio-economic differences between rural and urban settings when investing in education.
He noted that whilst schools in urban settings are endowed with modern facilities that enables the smooth teaching and learning, those within the rural settings tend to be handicapped.
He said balancing these socio-economic differences in the provision and delivery of education was a necessary condition for achieving equitable investment in the quality of education.
Prof Oduro said as the provision of education remained one of the most important responsibilities of government, it was governments duty to ensure that public investments in education bridges the gap between deprived and endowed schools in terms of physical infrastructure, equipment, learning materials, personnel and other logistics distribution.
“Our society is made up of rich and poor families whose capacity levels in terms of educating their children differ. Whilst parents of wards in endowed schools are more capable and more willing to augment government's expenditure on their children’s education, those in less endowed schools struggle”, he added.
Prof Oduro was speaking at the 5th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the Ghana National Association of Teacher in Cape Coast.
The conference which was attended by over 700 delegates from all the regions in Ghana was on the theme “Transforming societies through education: Invest More. Invest Equitably”.
He indicated that, because education was a fundamental human right for everyone and key to the future of any country, inadequate investment in education can plunge the society into higher cost in terms of public spending on social and economic crime control as well as curative health management.
“In light of this, the Ghanaian society cannot and should not leave any individual uneducated or half educated (within the context of quality) if we really commit ourselves to transforming our society”, he noted.
While placing emphasis on the place of the teacher in the development of the Ghanaian educational sector, Prof Oduro stated that teacher was a key instrument to develop education and that as a country we cannot achieve our transformation agenda without the teacher.
He therefore called on government to reward and recruit more teachers,because “it is mandatory that government rewards teachers and recruits more teachers to operationalize its initiatives”.
He further charged the teachers to work harder to ensure they maximized returns of investments in the education sector adding that equitable investment in education would be meaningless if the teachers did not act appropriately to complement such investment.
The Omanhen of the Oguaa Traditional area, Osbarimba Kwesi Atta II who chaired the session called on teachers to be committed to optimizing contact hours and desist from using it for personal activities.
Source: Sally Ngissah/ Central Region
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