Govt must act quickly to avert educational shame

Authorities on education describe it as the process by which the values, beliefs, knowledge and mores of a society are passed on to its young generation, thereby making them fully-fledged members of that society. To this end, some educators have summed the process as the transmission of culture to coming generations.

That makes education a very important social process that should not, in the least, be treated with flippancy in all of its facets and stages. This is because any mess created along any of its stages could have unintended, far-reaching adverse repercussions which could affect generations. But it appears the goings on in the country's educational sector is worryingly leading us to this ominous path.

Members of the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) have been on strike for the past eight weeks, demanding the payment of their book and research allowances. This has led to the closure of the polytechnics nationwide, and the indefinite postponement of the end of semester examinations. The category of group most negatively affected by the closure of the polytechnics is third-year students moving to final year; their fate now hangs in the balance. The consequences of such a closure are predictable: disruption of the academic calendar, backlog of workload and the running of crash programmes to restore whatever been lost.

On Wednesday, cooks of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) were on radio, lamenting the non-payment of monies owed them since last year. Their lamentations were corroborated by Mr Seidu P. Adamu, the National Co-ordinator of the GSFP, who revealed indeed that the GSFP owed the cooks for the period, October 18, 2013–June 30, 2014. Needless to say, some of the cooks are contemplating stopping cooking. If the cooks are to carry through on their threat, many pupils in basic schools in deprived communities who depend on the meals provided by cooks to keep going throughout the day will abandon school.

Last, but not least, headmasters and mistresses of boarding Senior High Schools (SHSs) have also sounded a note of warning that, they may close down the schools because feeding grant meant for students have, for some period now, not been paid by the authorities that be. The headmasters claimed that the magnanimity of their creditors have been stretched to its limit, and many of them have now resolved not to sell goods on credit any longer if debts owed them are not settled. It will be a national shame if the schools are closed down for lack of funds to feed students.

The cumulative effect of the not-too-good picture painted above is the insidious impacts on education referred to at the beginning of this opinion piece. We of Public Agenda shudder to think of these consequences. We therefore call on the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministries of Education and Finance to act quickly to avert the situation staring us in the face as any delay will land us into an avoidable national quagmire.