The record of President Akufo-Addo in the education sector is unmatched, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister for Education, has stated.
According to him, the performance of the current government in the last six years leaves previous government’s miles behind in terms of educational outcomes in the last 14 years.
“From schools to schools, change is happening, and those schools that are not doing well are also receiving additional funding from MasterCard Foundation to improve teaching and learning,” he told the media in an interview in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital.
The Minister said that is the approach his Ministry has adopted to improve the standard of education in such schools, emphasising that it does not include closing down non-performing schools.
“It is about supporting teachers and head masters through the National Education Leadership Institute to improve performance in such schools.
The minister also revealed that the preliminary analysis of the 2022 P2 National Standardised Test indicates that Ghana has made a significant improvement in Literacy proficiency since 2015. The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) results in 2015 show that, only 2% of pupils in Primary 2 could read at grade level, with 50% unable to read a single word. This situation called for educational transformation that led to the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2018-2030.
“In all, about 456,481 pupils were engaged in the test, which happened to be the 1st Census test conducted by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment; with 232,003 being males while the females were 224,478. The preliminary analysis of the 2022 test indicates a success rate of 38.7% proficiency as the mean percentage score. In terms of gender, Female average of 39.9% was slightly better than the Male average of 37.4%.
“In terms of public/private school children, there was 380,814 public school children against 11,294 private school children. The analysis also indicates mean score of 37.0% for the public schools with the private school mean score being 70.3%. Full and detailed results for both Literacy and Numeracy with the various sub-tasks and regional averages will be released in due course”, he said.
Dr. Adutwum insisted that President Akufo-Addo’s record in education performance improvement is incontestable. He said the President’s approach to improve academic performance is to resource schools with the necessary logistics.
The introduction of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and making Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) free has changed the face of education in Ghana, he noted.
According to him, until President Akufo-Addo took office only two per cent of pupils in class two could read but through sound interventions, the situation has improved to 38 per cent.
“The President has done tremendously well moving enrolment in senior high schools from about 800,000 to 1.4 million and that is what we should be discussing,” he pointed out.
