Accra, Sept. 22, GNA – The Reverend Ama Afo Blay, Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), on Monday appealed to the Ghanaian media to go beyond reporting on scandals in the Service and focus attention also on education development issues.
She said media reportage on misconduct in the Service, like teachers defiling pupils, embezzling of funds and parents attacking teachers drew attention of the GES Management for corrective measures.
It is, however, advisable that Journalists crosschecked their data to accurately project the performance of the Sector.
Reverend Afo Blay drew attention the issues in a speech read for her in Accra, at the beginning of a two-day training workshop for Senior Journalists on the coverage of education.
Ms Florence Darko, a Consultant at the GES, represented Rev Afo Blay, at the workshop, which the Working Group on Communication for Education and Development (COMED), of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, organised with the assistance of the World Bank.
Reverend Afo Blay said the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme introduced seven years ago, to consolidate the achievements of the 1987 educational reform, was steadily on course. She said since the introduction of the FCUBE, the performance of the Sector had not been that bad as projected by the media, a rather it was improving at a slow pace, adding that the gap between girls’ enrolment to that of boys was also getting narrower.
The enrolment of girls, in some urban districts was even higher than that of boys, the GES Director General said.
Reverend Afo Blay stressed the need for active community participation in the management of schools. She spoke of a marked improvement in the performance of the Kushea and the Swedru L/A Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) after the community actively got involved in the schools’ affairs.
Source: GhanaWeb
