Stop focusing on old issues – Apaak to Napo

The Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Dr. Clement Apaak, has asked Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, to stop dwelling on past issues and focus on pressing needs in the education sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

It comes after the minister said the erstwhile NDC administration did not provide a single textbook during their eight-year term in office to senior high schools in the country.

Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh made the disclosure on Tuesday when he updated Parliament on the policies and achievements of government as far as education in the country was concerned.

“They (NDC) profess to know about education and that is the sad aspect. Textbooks are not classroom materials, they are resource materials. Since the time of President Kuffour, it is private publishers who publish textbooks not government.

“In the eight years that they (NDC) were in government, they bought not a single textbook for any secondary school in the country, whether core or elective,” the Manhyia North MP said.

He added, “President Akufo-Addo has bought core textbooks and has distributed core textbooks to all secondary schools. He has bought supplementary readers for all secondary schools”.

However, the Deputy Ranking member on the Committee of Education in Parliament, Dr. Apaak, believes there are serious issues that need to be addressed.

“Sometimes we shouldn’t let political expediency take us away from some of the basic needs that the people who have entrusted us with their power expect from us.

“One would have expected that in this era of COVID, the fact that rural students, particularly students from less endowed and deprived parts of this country have to go through would have been addressed.”

“We know that those of us who are privileged to have our wards in international schools and all of that, they can use zoom platforms and their digital platforms to continue teaching and learning. What of the rest of the population.”

“The minister comes to speak about, you know, innovative ways. What are we doing, even in spite of all the challenges we are facing? What are the timelines? Are we going to start looking at what is happening?

“Are we going to keep the schools shut? Are we going to deploy technology to ensure that every person of school-going age is going to catch up for teaching and learning to continue?,” he quizzed.

“These are the things that we should be talking about. Not buying past questions in excess of 400,000 for students, and trying to pretend as though everything is nice, and trying to come and harsh old issues which have been put to rest. Let’s look at what we are going to do moving forward,” he added.