The Municipal Director of Education of Okaikwei Municipal Mrs. Cynthia Aboni has commended government for the prompt and bold decision to provide Covid 19 logistics to schools to combat the disease and supplies of educational materials to pupils to promote teaching and learning in spite of the steady rise in Covid 19 cases.
She disclosed that both public and private schools have received these items as government embarks upon frantic efforts to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and contain its spread in the schools.
This, she said has helped the schools to observe the Covid 19 protocols more strictly with the hope that such efforts would yield positive results.
Items received by the directorate included sanitizers, tissues papers, face shields, nose masks, gallons of liquid soap, veronica buckets and stands, and thermometer guns
In an interview to assess modalities for promoting educational goals in the area in the midst of Covid 19,, Mrs. Aboni praised government through the hon. Municipal Chief Executive Boye Laryea and the entire Okaikwei North Municipal Assembly for promptly supporting education delivery within the municipality.
She specifically mentioned the provision of dual desks, teacher’s tables and chairs, school library furniture and cupboards, school uniforms and the provision of full logistical support for ” My First Day at School” activities among others since the unit became operational a couple of years ago.
She also expressed her appreciation to the Acting Municipal Director of Health Services, Dr Nana Ama Agyabeng, and her team for the collaboration with the education directorate in the sensitization in the schools especially on covid 19.
Mrs.Aboni said in spite of the commendable effort by the assembly, a lot more remains to be tackled to improve on educational outcomes at the basic levels.
According to her, there was the need to engage all stakeholders in a collaborative effort to support the learners.
She called on parents especially to play their roles as the first teachers who shape the character of the learners and also endeavor to provide their basic educational materials such as pencils, pens, jotters and supplementary readers to complement that of government.
In an effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”, there is the need for the government to spare no effort at addressing the logistical needs, infrastructural deficits and all existing constraints at the basic level that militate against conscious efforts at achieving the desired success in education.
The education director said a comparison with Public Senior High Schools indicates that public basic schools were lacking in some respects, adding that the basic level was the foundation so it needed to be firm.
“Basic education is a right of every child, which ensures a broad based learning of the child and therefore it needed to be solid.
“If the basic education is not strong, it would be challenging to the student to achieve the desired results going up because the foundation is weak”, she explained.
Furthermore, she said the responsibility to carry out these functions does not lie solely with central government but called on all stakeholders in education, civil society, Non-Governmental Organizations and the local communities to support.
She expressed confidence that with the eventual rollout of the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcome Project (GALOP), with focus on basic education, it is envisaged that there will be an improvement in the quality of low-performing schools.
On capitation grant, she indicated that it would be appreciated if the government would consider an increase in the allocation of capitation grant to schools to ease the stress on school heads in the management of the schools.
By:Francis Cofie/onma
