Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh – Minister of Education
A new bill which seeks to provide learning opportunities for adults who do not have any formal education has been passed by Parliament.
The Complementary Education Agency (CEA) Bill 2019 received a full backing of Members of Parliament (MPs) on Friday after its introduction to the House on June 6, 2019 by the Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh.
The bill will establish the Complementary Education Agency to provide for educational programmes outside the formal education system to equip them with requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for their personal, community and national development.
The agency will establish learning centres across the country and offer educational programmes which patrons can acquire formal qualifications as the agency will set up an examination body that will administer examinations equivalent to Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSE).
The government said the CEA would absorb the existing Non-Formal Education Division of the Ministry of Education that had been providing a range of programmes relative to adult and lifelong education.
On the memorandum accompanying the bill, the minister stated that the government wanted to ensure access to education in all forms, and this necessitated the enactment of a legislation to establish an agency responsible for complementary education to ensure the carrying out of the myriad of changes and innovations taking place in the field of complementary education.
“The name is changing from Non-Formal Education to Complementary Education to reflect the myriad of changes that has taken place in the area of non-formal education and acknowledge that complementary education can be formal and recognized within a qualifications framework,” it noted.
The Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, described the passage as a great day in the history of the country, and indicated that this formed part of President Akufo-Addo’s transformation initiative for Ghana’s education.
According to him, people above 35 years who do not have any formal education are “stuck somewhere” and the government, in recognition of the problem, decided to give them the second chance that they can “walk into a learning centre and you can tell yourself I want to be an electrician and somebody will guide you and within no time you can be an electrician.”
“What the Complementary Agency Bill seeks to do is to complement the formal education system but we are now revamping the agency that used to be called the Non-Formal Education Agency that dealt with literacy courses.”
Dr. Adutwum stated that an individual could also have adult technical and vocational courses, and indicated that “this is bringing us at par with best practices around the world where you can walk into an adult learning centre and begin to have an equivalent education.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House