The Minority in Parliament says the decision by the government to scrap the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) is a major education directive that requires a national dialogue.
The Caucus believes the process should be done through a broader stakeholder consultation and not just through an executive decision.
A statement issued by the Minority and signed by its Deputy Ranking on the Education Committee, Dr. Clement Apaak, has therefore advised the government to seek broader opinions before submitting the bill before Cabinet and Parliament for approval.
This was in response to a story published by the Daily Graphic and attributed to Education Minister Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum.
The Minister told the newspaper that the free senior high school policy bill, among other things, seeks to reform the pre-tertiary education sector with a focus on scrapping junior high school and eliminating the BECE.
This is in sharp contrast to what Alexander Afento-Markin, the majority, told journalists recently.
He told the media that the bill was to protect the free SHS policy and compel successive governments to continue to implement the policy.
He also claimed the bill had received approval from the Cabinet.
But it has emerged to be false, as the minister says the bill has yet to be submitted before Cabinet for consideration and approval.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, said in an interview with the Daily Graphic that the bill would also propose the decoupling of junior high school (JHS) from basic school and make it part of secondary school, thereby creating six years of secondary education.
He indicated that another proposal of the bill was the cancellation of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as a precondition for gaining admission to the secondary level. Rather, it would be used for school selection purposes.
He added that the certification for completing SHS would become the first level of formal certificate any student could obtain in the country, rather than the BECE certification, as the Education Minister further stated.
But reacting to this in the statement, the Minority said combining JHS and SHS is a major undertaking that requires serious national dialogue.
It is unfortunate that the government failed to consult stakeholders before arriving at this decision.
“Removing BECE and combining JHS and SHS into a 6 year secondary system, is a major undertaking that should require a serious national stakeholders dialogue. Sadly, no consultations have been carried out. And there is no indication of input from key stakeholders in the educational space as far as we know.
Given the apparent contradictions between what the Majority Leader and the Minister for Education have said, with regards to the proposed bill, we must not and can not discuss the purposed bill any further until we see it and study its contents,” the statement said.
It continued “Our position as a party and a Caucus remains the same. Any bill or legislation intended to address the FSHS policy implementation challenges, and to make the programme sustainable, is welcome. Let us restate, that John Dramani Mahama and the NDC believe that the FSHS policy is a good policy and do not hate it as some in the NPP falsely claim. How can we not like a policy we began implementing in 2015?
Our concern has been and remains the implementation challenges: inadequate academic and residential infrastructure; inadequate furniture; inadequate and poor quality food; erratic academic calendar; obnoxious double track system among others. And we will continue pointing out these implementation challenges with the hope that they will be fixed.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
