By Kodjo Adams
Accra, Feb. 25, GNA – Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister of Education, has urged student unions to share their honest views about the state of education in Ghana and how it can be improved.
“We will need you to be blunt with the truth and share your ideas about how to improve education in the country,” he said.
The Minister gave the advice at the opening ceremony of the stakeholder engagement with the student unions on the ongoing Education Forum in Accra.
The nationwide forum, which will end on February 28, 2025, is on the theme: “Transforming Education for a Sustainable Future.”
It is being structured along zonal stakeholder engagements and town hall meetings under five thematic areas.
These are infrastructure; quality education; regulations, accountability and governance; education financing; and research and data.
The students were grouped into breakout sessions to discuss the thematic areas and make presentations on recommendations to improve education outcomes.
Mr Iddrisu described the student unions “as an incubator of socialisation,” where the nation’s leadership emanated to help shape policy for development.
“If you lead the union with discipline and integrity, you will succeed in your personal and national aspirations,” he said.
The Minister said the country needed dispassionate discussions on quality education and improvement devoid of politics.
While the country was busy preparing for the free Senior High School, little attention was focused on the expansion of facilities at the tertiary level to absorb the exponential increase in the numbers of the students, he noted.
“So we now have almost a figure of about 330,000 students, yet lecture theatres and accommodation facilities are not adequate to respond to the challenges.”
Mr Iddrisu indicated that the Government was determined to engage in a consultative approach to fashion out the best way to address accommodation issues before implementing new policies in the education sector.
He expressed concerns over the number of uncompleted infrastructure projects in the education space, calling for concerted efforts to address the phenomenon.
He said the authorities needed to adhere to the Constitution, which stated that projects initiated by previous governments must be completed by the succeeding ones.
The President Mahama-led administration, he said, was committed to its education policy of providing free admission fees to first-year tertiary students.
“It will cost the state some Ghc400 million every other year to honour that pledge to our students,” Mr Iddrisu said.
“The government recognises that many of the students cannot afford that fee and are unable to continue their education…”
He said the role of the student unions was important to know how the fees would be dispersed to ensure fairness and equity.
“Do we do it through the Student Loan Trust or through the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission? We want suggestions from you,” he said.
Mr Daniel Nii Korley Botchway, President of the National Union of Ghana Students, commended the committee for involving them to influence and shape decisions for national development.
GNA