Free SHS education to begin next academic year

The Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang says the programme to make second cycle education more accessible, especially in underserved areas, is on course.

To give greater meaning to the programme, the government initiated a project to build 200 community day secondary schools in selected communities.

The President cut the sod for the commencement of the first phase of the project with the construction of 50 schools on March 3, 2014 at Kwaobaah-Nyanoa, near Adeiso in the Upper West Akyem District of the Eastern Region.

When the education ministry took its turn at the meet the press series in Accra Tuesday, Prof Opoku Agyemang said the 50 schools in selected communities were at various stages of completion.

She said the government’s policy of the progressive free SHS education would begin as announced in the 2015/2016 academic year for more than 367,565 second cycle students.

Additionally, she said, with support from the World Bank under the Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP), the construction of 23 new schools, with bungalows for staff and heads, facilities improvement for 50 existing schools, quality improvement for 125 existing schools and the provision of scholarships for 10,400 students were all progressing.

Highlights

The minister gave progress reports on the 20 educational institutions and agencies under the ministry.

She gave some of the highlights as improvements in teacher training and professional development, the institution of a best school award this year and the standardisation of school fees across the country.

On teacher training and development, the goal was to increase the numbers and quality of trained teachers in language, Mathematics and Science, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said that a teacher career progression policy to guide the licensing and registration of teachers, as well as an appraisal system to measure teacher effectiveness as a criteria for promotion had been instituted.

On the institution of best schools award, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said it would be an expansion of the Best Teacher Award initiative.

She said a committee of teacher unions, representations from teaching universities, past best teacher coordinators, retired directors of education and chairpersons of best teacher assessment panels were helping the ministry to expand the best teacher award scheme to cover the acknowledgement of schools.

The objective, she explained, would be to reward teaching and support services.

On the standardisation of school fees, the minister said all stakeholders had held consultative discussions to agree on standardised fees, based on the needs of schools.

Campus connect

Prof. Opoku Agyemang said the Campus Connect initiative, instituted to strengthen relations between the government and the student body, would be strengthened in fulfilment of the President’s pledge to promote accountable and transparent governance.

Social Interventions

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said a procurement process for locally made leather shoes had been completed for the shoes to be distributed to needy school children.

She said the ministry was also currently procuring 500,000 school uniforms and 15 million exercise books to be distributed to 36,686 basic schools.

Source:  Caroline Boateng, Graphic Online

Beneficiaries of Government scholarship in 7 regions receive package

More than 10,000 senior high school students are to benefit from the government’s scholarship of $500 each over the next three years.

The scholarship scheme is being implemented under the Secondary Schools Improvement Project (SEIP), which is funded by the World Bank.

The scholarship will cover approved school fees and levies, transport to school or bicycles, school uniforms, house dresses, physical education kits, school shoes and bags, relevant stationery and supplementary readers.

The criteria used in selecting beneficiary students indicates that the student must be an orphan; one who takes care of herself or himself; a physically challenged student without support; a student who has sickle cells; a student living with HIV and AIDS; or a student in a household with income below the minimum wage.

In Accra, the Ministry of Education gave scholarships to 2,300 students who were selected to benefit from a scholarship programme for the 2014/2015 academic year at a ceremony yesterday.

The beneficiaries were from the Greater Accra, Central, Eastern and the Volta regions, while similar presentations were made simultaneously in other parts of the country.

Each beneficiary student will be entitled to $500 per annum for three years.

Purpose of scholarship

In a speech read on her behalf, the Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang explained that the purpose of the scholarship scheme was to provide support to needy students and aimed at increasing enrolment, improving retention and completion rates, as well as improving students’ academic performance, among others.

Beneficiaries

The 2,300 beneficiaries, she explained, were part of the SEIP Project which sought to give scholarships to 10,400 students from low-income families, comprising 6,400 girls and 4,000 boys, over a three-year period, to enable them to complete their secondary level education.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said the selection process was managed by a team including the district directors of education, heads of beneficiary schools, district girls education officers, assembly members and members of District Education Oversight Committees (DEOCs).

Disbursement

On the disbursement, Professor Opoku-Agyemang said specific guidelines had been put in place to ensure that the managers adhered to disbursement criteria.

As part of the guidelines, the list of all beneficiaries must be posted on the noticeboards of schools, district education offices and district assemblies, and parents of the beneficiaries invited to the schools to be briefed on the scholarship scheme, including its administration and payments to beneficiaries.

A similar presentation ceremony was held in Kumasi, reports Donald Ato Dapatem.

Presenting the cheques to the heads of 50 schools in the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti and Western regions, a Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Alex Kyeremeh, said schools must deduct arrears owed by students for the first and second terms of the 2014/2015 academic year and pay the difference to the parents and guardians of the scholarship beneficiaries.

World ranking

The Deputy Minister debunked a recent report by the BBC that an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranking of educational levels placed Ghana at the last position.

He said Ghana was not a member of the OECD countries and, therefore, could not be assessed.


Source: Written by Severious Kale-Dery & Donald Ato Dapatem, Graphic Online(graphic.com.gh)