International Education Summit opens in Accra
A four-day International Educators Summit for stakeholders to delve into challenges confronting education, and to explore new technological grounds to improve the quality of education is underway in Accra.
It is being organised by the Ghana Chapter of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) on the theme; ‘Reimagining Education for the Future We Speak; Africa and the World in Dialogue.’
Issues to be discussed include leveraging technology to enhance educational excellence, the transformational power of deeper leadership, nurturing future leaders and embracing adaptative for Ghana’s educational advancement.
Others are education for the 21st century scholar, bridging the digital divide for African graduates, designing future of learning in an AI World and dynamic leadership, and learning for tomorrow today, as well as liberatory leadership challenges, ways of addressing the employability challenges across the globe.
The ASCD, headquartered in the United States of America, is a global organisation committed to promoting excellence in learning, teaching and leadership in order to ensure that each child is nurtured, secure, engaged, supported and appropriately challenged.
The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, opening the event yesterday said transformation of the country’s educational system was possible, but only with the kind of leadership exhibited by the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo.
Basic schools in the country, he explained, were currently being transformed from the 19th century classroom blocks to modern ones equipped with modern laboratory equipment where the teaching of Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) would be the main focus from Kindergarten to the High School level.
The Minister stated that the government’s Free Senior High
School policy had significantly increased access and attained gender parity, adding that what was needed now was the collaboration of all stakeholders to help transform the lives of the country’s future leaders.
The Senior Advisor to the President, Yaw Mr Osafo- Maafo, also urged the participants to adopt concrete measures that would address challenges confronting countries on the continent.
He indicated that the acquisition of knowledge through education was to help develop and address societal challenges, “but if it cannot be used to solve sanitation and flooding issues then there is a problem.”
On education, the Senior Minister indicated, must start solving minor challenges from the classroom before moving to the outside world, anything short of that would be problematic.
The Executive Director of Ghana ASCD, Dr Charles Yeboah, in his opening remarks underscored that emerging trends in education calls for more research to shape the future of the beneficiaries as every child must be given the opportunity to not only succeed, but thrive in this ever changing world.
The summit, he explained, would pioneer change for further collaboration as well as to provide a dynamic platform for educational practitioners, policy makers and development partners around the world to catalyse change, and expressed optimism that the impactful sessions would promote advancement in schools across the world.
