Don’t leave Free SHS implementation on gov’t alone – Parents urged

National Programme Coordinator of SOS Children’s Villages Ghana, George Yaw Boateng, has called on parents to support the government with the implementation of the free senior high school policy.
He said leaving the responsibility of the policy on the government alone would not promote quality education as education cannot be absolutely free as perceived in some quarters.
Mr Boateng said this when the SOS Children’s Villages Ghana organized an advocacy training workshop for community-based organisations and community leaders at Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region.
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The training is one of the SOS Children’s Villages project dubbed: “Quality Education Now” being carried out in seven districts namely Kpone/Katamanso, Ningo/Prampram, and Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region.
The rest are East Akim and Fanteakwa Districts in the Eastern Region and Asokore Mampong District in the Ashanti Region.
Mr Boateng said the advocacy programme was aimed at bringing stakeholders and individuals together to find ways of assisting duty-bearers to do their work well to improve teaching and learning in the education sector.
He said this would help the stakeholders to speak with one voice as they seek solutions to problems that hinder the delivery of quality education.
Mr Boateng said it has been realised that examination results of students in the public schools are not encouraging and that the Quality Education Now programme has come to remedy the situation.
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The Programme Coordinator urged parents to pay regular visits to schools to see how their children fare in class and to have interactions with teachers while attending parent-teacher association meetings to contribute their quota to the development of schools.
Mr Boateng said the frequent demands for monies at parent-teacher association does discourage some parents from attending meetings, especially at the low-income communities and called for a second look at the situation.
He appealed to community members to own the public schools and do whatever they can to support their management.
He called on the Ghana Education Service to organise refresher courses and in-service training for teachers in the public schools to update their teaching skills, saying that the world is moving very fast and the teachers must be abreast with the times.
Mr Boateng said for teaching and learning to go on well in the schools, supervision must improve and urged district educational coordinators, circuit supervisors and head teachers to do their best to ensure that teaching and learning progress as expected.
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The school management teams should ensure that the little financial resources extended to them are prudently utilised, adding that; “our expectations are that all the school management will do well to see that the schools are performing well,” he said.
Even if the government is saying that education is free at all, there are roles that parents must play by making provision of some textbooks and uniforms among others “to make things comfortable for their children to learn and pass their examination successfully.”