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The National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Deputy Youth Organizer has underrated the Akufo-Addo led administration, describing it as the poorest performed government in the history of Ghana under education.
According to Edem Agbana who was speaking on the Anopa Bofoↄ show hosted by Kwamena Sam Biney, the judgement follows the lack of commitment of the Akufo-Addo government to fund education in the country.
He mentioned the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government’s failure to invest in the sector equal to or above the agreed level of educational funding by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The member states of the international organization had agreed that funding will range between four to 6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 15 to 20% of public expenditure.
According to the Organizer, the NDC under the leadership of the former President John Dramani Mahama had kept the funding at 4.5 % of GDP as the lowest for the government.
“Today, as we speak, the President [Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo] has brought it to the lowest, 3.1 per cent.” Mr. Agbana alleged.
This, he said, has affected the quality of education in Ghana in that the government has not been able to print textbooks consistent with the new curriculum for students.
“It has never happened in the history of the country that three years after the change of curriculum, textbooks have not been printed. It has never happened in the history of this country,” he stressed.
Advancing his argument, he noted that the current situation in the educational sector has rendered the students schooling without textbooks leaving the ratio at one student to zero textbooks (1:0).
However, prior to the coming into office of the New Patriotic Party, the textbook to student ratio was four textbooks to one student (4:1).
“By 2016 when President Mahama was leaving office, we changed it to four textbooks to 1 student. Education Management Information System (EMIS) report at the Ministry of Education has it that per student, one student by four textbooks by 2016 but currently, one student to zero textbooks because they have not printed the textbooks since the change of the curriculum.”
According to him, the students are not able to use the textbooks provided by the erstwhile NDC government because the books have become “obsolete because it does not conform to the current curriculum” adding “when you changed the curriculum, three years after you haven’t printed a single textbook.”
Mr Agbana further alluded to the Millennium school project the John Mahama Administration together with the then Mayor of Accra embarked on leading to the construction of school blocks to get the students from learning under trees into modern classroom blocks for effective learning and teaching.
“The government [NPP] has not since constructed new buildings,” he stated.
