Education must contribute to global development
The Global Monitoring Education (GEM) Report 2016 has proposed that countries should change the way they think about education and its role in human well-being to contribute to global development.
Advertisement
The report states: “More than ever, education has a responsibility to foster the right type of skills, attitude and behaviour that will lead to sustainable and inclusive growth.”
Launching the report at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) yesterday, the Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, said “This report should set off alarm bells around the world and lead to a historic scale-up of actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Four.”
The launch of the global report, dubbed: “Transforming our world: The role of education in the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development”, was organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Ghana, in partnership with the Centre for Conflict, Human Rights and Peace Studies of the UEW.
Inclusiveness
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang noted that “education gave Ghana the key tools — economic, social, technological and ethical — to take on the MDGs and achieve them”.
She indicated that it was time to revise the educational syllabus to suit the job market and called for strong partnership from the stakeholders.
She emphasised the need for students in Ghana to be taught in a language that they understood and suggested that efforts be intensified to enhance teaching in the local languages.
Agenda for all
The Dean of the Faculty of Education Studies of the UEW, Prof. George Kankam, who chaired the function, stated that education should be an agenda for all because it was the only tool that could cause global change.
Education, he stated, could bring about social, economic and environmental changes and stressed that education in Ghana needed a major transformation.
Prof. Yaw Ankomah of the University of Cape Coast, who presented the report, proposed that issues on climate change and citizenship should be incorporated into the school syllabi to broaden the knowledge of students.
Background
The President of UNESCO Ghana, Mr Tirso Dos Santos, explained that the GEM report was an independent, authoritative and evidence-based annual document published by UNESCO.
He explained that the report was an authoritative reference for the global follow-up and review of education.
According to him, 13 reports had been produced since 2002, and the GEM has a global reputation for excellence, covering themes ranging from inequality, gender, teaching and learning, literacy, early childhood care and education.