The New Juaben South Municipal Director of Education, Victor Degraft Etsison, has called on the New Juaben South Municipal Assembly to enforce by – laws preventing Children from betting and gaming activities as well as hawking on the streets.
This, he says, will ensure that school children in the municipality take their education seriously.
Many children in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital are mostly seen roaming and selling in town in the evening while others are seen during day time engaging in betting and gaming activities, while others hawk on street.
Child right advocates are worried about the development.
Stakeholders have already expressed concern on sharp decline of quality of education in basic school level in New Juaben South Municipality.
Analysis of performance of candidates in Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the period covering the last six years show a worrying trend of consistent abysmal performances particularly those in public basic schools.
The statistics show that, no candidate in public basic school in the municipality scored aggregate six (6) during the period under review. Only a handful of candidates presented during the period scored between aggregate seven (7) and fifteen (15).
Majority of the candidates scored between aggregate 25 and 36 with some scoring 40 and above.“you realized that performance is very low. Basically, their grades range from 6 to 9 in the various subjects”. The municipal Education Director Victor Degraft Etsison said.
The New Juaben South Municipal Director of Education Victor Degraft Etsison said the situation is “quiet alarming and needs urgent intervention to address it because New Juaben South is the Eastern Regional capital this poor academic performance must not happen here “.
He said ,as part of measures taken to remedy the situation, baseline data on teachers in the municipality has been collected and analyzed.,
The data shows that most public basic schools in the Municipality are overstaffed but lack teachers with specialization in Mathematics, English and Science.
Also ,many of the teachers were found to be teaching subjects they have minimum knowledge about.
This has been partly blamed for the poor academic performance of pupils over the years in various subjects.
The exercise was in tandem with a directive issued on March 31,2021 by the Eastern Regional Director of Ghana Education Service Mrs. Margret Nsiah -Asamoah to all district and municipal directors of Education to conduct certificate audit of all teachers in public basic and senior high school for realignment of subject teaching.
The realignment has resulted in changing subjects imposed on teachers teach despite lacking the needed knowledge and skill to teach . In some cases,some of the teachers are being transfered to schools which need their services in the municipality.
This new policy accompanied with enhanced monitoring and supervision by the New Juaben South Municipal Education Directorate have triggered uproar among some teachers in the municipality.
The agitating teachers have accused the Municipal Director of Education of victimizing and intimidating them.“the aggrieved teachers expressed disappointment in the director for always touring the schools to fight and insult teachers for nothing. The director is also doing a mass transfer of teachers from mission schools to Islamic schools and vice-versa after suspecting that these teachers have an affiliation the opposition political parties”
New Juaben South Municipal Director of Education, Victor Degraft Etsison, however, debunked the allegations “there is nothing like victimization and there is nothing like intimidation. Basically, what is being done is that after analyzing results of candidates from 2017 to 2020 in BECE examination, we recognized that most of the teachers were not teaching the subjects they went to the universities to learn. So basically, we have been mandated by the Regional Education Directorate that if you learnt mathematics in University teach mathematics, if you learnt Ghanaian language teach Ghanaian language, that is simply the exercise that we are doing called the realignment of teachers to their various subjects”.
He continued that “At the basic schools, we recognized that somebody who has done Ghanaian language is the one teaching mathematics, someone who has done home economics is the one teaching social studies. It is not helping the students to really perform. That has resulted in moving Teachers from one school to another, and the schools are not even far they are adjacent schools that do not have the requisite subject teachers”
Stakeholders
The Regional Education Unit Managers in Eastern Region having been exposed to the BECE results in a meeting with the Municipal Education Director ,became alarmed and expressed serious concerns about the declined in quality of education which has taken a worrying nosedive in the municipality in particular.
They called on all stakeholders including government and parents to play their respective roles expected of them most importantly in provision of the needed teaching and learning materials and support.
The Managers also called on the New Juaben South Municipal Assembly to enforce all bye laws that prevents children from hawking, betting, and other social vices which have become increasingly rampant in the municipality.
MP
The Member of Parliament for New Juaben South, Michael Okyere Baafi, said on Wednesday April 22, 2021 that, comprehensive measures are being rolled out to change the sad narrative as far as quality education in Koforidua is concerned. He said ,quality education is key element of “ the new Koforidua project” he is championing.
