By Iddi Yire
Accra, May 24, GNA – The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) has proposed to the Government the establishment of a church-state co-management framework its mission schools built on mutual accountability, subsidiarity, and service to the common good.
Reverend Matthew Gyamfi, the GCBC President and Catholic Bishop of the Sunyani Diocese, said they believed it was time to revisit and reinvigorate this partnership-rooted not in nostalgia but in shared responsibility and mutual respect.
He made the proposal when he led a 20-Member GCBC Delegation to pay a courtesy call on President John Dramani Mahama at the Presidency in Accra.
The bishops were at the Presidency to congratulate the President on his massive victory in the December 7, 2024, general election and to present a litany of issues of national concern for his attention, such as the menace of illegal mining, the education reform, governance and electoral reforms.
He said the Catholic Church had long stood at the heart of Ghana’s moral and intellectual development, stating that since before Independence, their schools served as cradles of civic virtue and academic excellence.
He said currently, a good number of basic schools, senior high schools, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVETs) and tertiary institutions in the country were Catholic Church-established, most in partnership with government.
He said administrative bottlenecks and the gradual erosion of faith-based managerial roles now threaten the very ethos that built this legacy.
He said their key recommendations include Formal Partnership Agreement between the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service (GES), and the GCBC Education Directorate and the creation of Joint Oversight Committees at national, regional, and diocesan levels.
Others are autonomy in staff recruitment and disciplinary structures for head teachers in Catholic institutions, consistent with national standards and guaranteed representation of GCBC in education policy forums and curriculum design panel.
Touching on democratic governance, Rev Gyamfi said the 32 years of Ghana’s democratic dispensation in the Fourth Republic had been governed 16 years each by the duopoly of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He said the Church contributed to the struggle for freedom from authoritarian military regimes; saying “We continue to speak and act whenever necessary because of our conviction about the inviolability of the freedoms of the person but also because of our hope for the integral development of our people”.
“Sadly, however, the successes chalked over the years notwithstanding, our political and economic evolution is still underwhelming.”
Rev Gyamfi said they were approaching the President at this point in the country’s life because they believe after 32 years of their democratic experience and the decisive mandate handed to President Mahama by the Ghanaian electorate at last year’s elections, it was the time for real and meaningful change for their people.
This, he said meant means, that failure to deliver would attract very little sympathy from the citizenry.
“It is in the spirit of the foregoing that we hope that the issues which we bring to you for discussion will be appreciated,” he said.
GNA
Edited by Benjamin Mensah