Teacher unions in the country have threatened strike actions if the Ministry of Education (MoE) goes ahead to privatise public schools in September this year.
According to them, the planned implementation of the Ghana Partnerships Schools (GPS) project was not the appropriate response to the challenges currently bedevilling the public schools system.
This was contained in a statement signed and issued yesterday in Accra by the General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), David Ofori Acheampong; President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Eric Angel Carbonu; National Chairman of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), Peter K. Lumor and King Ali Wudu, President of Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT)-Ghana.
It said the greatest threat to quality education delivery in the country was the inadequate funds and delays in the release of same to public schools and argued that government was deliberately starving public schools of the needed resources to use it as an opportunity to carry out the GPS project.
“For instance, as of today the capitation grant for first and second terms of the 2018/2019 academic year is in arrears. Why should the heads of schools be blamed in instances such as this instead of the employer’s negligence and dereliction of duty to provide the resources on time? We believe that government is deliberately holding onto the funds to use it as an opportunity to carry out the GPS project,” the statement added.
Rather than using secured funds for the implementation of the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), the statement urged the government to use the money to support basic schools where head teachers rely on borrowing to keep schools running.
It said the public schools would be well-placed if the MoE commit loans and grants towards enhancing the capacity and leadership skills of the heads or would-be heads of basic schools rather than resorting to source funding to support private operators.
The statement followed calls by the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) on government to halt the planned roll-out of the GPS project arguing that the project would add to the commercialisation of education in the country.
Consequently, the MoE justified the privatisation plan by insisting that the public no longer trust government-run schools.
By Times Reporter
