Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh
The Minister-designate for Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has confirmed that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government will stop the payment of utility bills by students at the tertiary and secondary school levels since those bills pile more financial burden on parents.
He said the scrapping of the payment of utility bills for students is in fulfillment of the party’s promise captured in its manifesto.
He could not however determine when the abolishment of the payment of utility bills by student would start.
The Minister-designate said the directive will have to come from president when he is approved by parliament to become the substantive minister.
He said the NPP government will make the teacher the fulcrum around which standards of education in the country would be improved and said that the NPP government will give incentive and motivation needed for the teacher to attain that objective.
He said it is the intention of this government to improve education to encourage reading, especially from the basic level and that the government will lead in the construction of community libraries to help inculcate the reading habit into school children.
He said the NPP government also intends to introduce History and Physical Education into curricula at the basic level to help school-children appreciate better their history as Ghanaians.
The Minister-designate for Education also told the Appointments Committee that the government would re-position the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to meet the educational needs of the citizens.
“We would have to look at the GETFund and see how it can directly help in improving the standard of education in the country.”
He said the government will also be seeking support from China to help upgrade laboratories of Colleges of Education to help churn out well qualified teachers to help move the educational agenda of the NPP government forward.
The nominee also said the NPP government will properly equip five under-equipped technical universities in the country to properly position them to offer the needed technical university education to prospective students.
On the importance to continue with the 200 Community-Day Senior High Schools started by the immediate past government, the Minister-designate, indicated to the committee that the policy is a laudable idea and the NPP government will definitely continue with that project.
He, however, said that some of the new community senior high schools, popularly known as E-blocks will be converted into technical schools because of the need to equip more youth with entrepreneurial and technical skills to be self-employed and to help reduce unemployment situation in the country.
He said in some of the cases, the E-blocks would be turned into fully fledged secondary schools with boarding facilities.
He said he was prepared to work with all stakeholders in the educational sector to help improve standards of education in the country for it to become attractive to other people from other countries.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr