^{Story by Malek Appiah Affum}

A four-member delegation from the Child Rights International (CRI), led by its Executive Director, Mr. Bright Appiah, on Wednesday, 9th June, 2021, paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Education, Hon. Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, at his office in Accra.

The call afforded the CRI delegation the opportunity to congratulate the Minister on his appointment and also raised pertinent issues that will help grow the educational space.

Mr. Appiah raised concerns about how the school environment was becoming unsafe for the development of children and cited the recent cases of death of an eleven months old baby at a kindergarten and a 17- year old girl in a senior high school.

He urged the Ministry to enhance security in public schools and ensure that private schools did same by providing adequate security on their premises to make the school environment safe for children.

Mr. Appiah expressed regrets about how the school was gradually becoming the grounds for imposing religious ideology on children by some heads and experimenting with them.

While the history and traditions of public schools founded by religious bodies should be recognized by the child, he observed, heads of such schools should ensure that no child was discriminated against on the basis of their religious beliefs.

The Executive Director noted with worry the lack of uniformity in the curriculum for basic schools owing to the absence of text books to guide what the children were being taught.

Mr. Appiah pledged CRI’s support to push the Minister’s agenda of reforming Ghana’s educational space as well as his vision of transforming the nation’s education to meet the demands of the 21st century.

Mr. Benjamin Kwasi Gyasi, Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, assured Mr. Appiah that measures would be put in place to address the concerns raised by CRI.

For his part, the Minister recognized the contribution of Mr. Bright Appiah in the development of the education sector having served on the Advisory Board of the Ministry of Education.

He said he had strong belief in the capability of Ghanaian children to study and excel globally, adding that this could be possible only when their progress was continuously assessed and monitored hence the introduction of the National Standard Test for all primary four pupils in November

Dr. Adutwum mentioned that he was looking forward to working with CRI in his Ministry’s quest to to promote excellence in educational management in Ghana.

Mr. Appiah was accompanied by Mrs. Jennifer Nartey, Head of Human Resource, Mr. Yoni Paa Quecy Howard, Deputy Head of Human Resource and Mr. Malek Appiah Affum, Multimedia Manager.

 

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