Ministry acquires 2.5m dictionaries : For public basic schools
The Ministry of Education (MoE) has taken delivery of 2.5 million dictionaries for distribution to public basic schools across the country.
Advertisement
The acquisition dictionaries, valued at GH¢70 million, forms part of initiatives by the ministry to invest in basic education in order to have holistic improvement in the performance of pupils.
Speaking during an inspection tour of EPP Books Services, the suppliers of the dictionaries, the Minister of Education, Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman, observed that there was the need to create a link between all stages of education.
She was accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Education in charge of tertiary education, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and other officials of the ministry.
The Minister asked all stakeholders to prioritise basic education by putting more resources into the procurement of the required teaching and learning materials to lay a solid foundation
“There should be a connection between basic education and other levels of education such as secondary and tertiary. When the foundation is weak, especially in subject areas such as Mathematics, Science, and English, we will not be able to make any meaningful impact at the tertiary level,” she added.
Quality teachers
Prof. Opoku-Agyeman said teachers played a great role in the quality of education for which reason they were required to be knowledgeable in the concepts and methodologies they adopted to deliver their lessons.
Medium of instruction
Prof. Opoku-Agyeman said the ability of pupils to understand the medium of instruction used by basic school teachers facilitated easy grasp of the concepts.
“It is for this reason that the purchase of these dictionaries is pivotal since it is the source of good English, which is used as the medium of instruction. It is a good source of vocabulary building, comprehension, and for spelling and pronunciation”, she said.
Textbooks and WASSCE results
The MoE has increased the textbook to pupil ratio from one textbook to three pupils in 2013 to four textbooks to one pupil in 2016. The ministry has also supplied a greater number of textbooks to second cycle institutions in an attempt to make teaching and learning materials available at those levels of education.
Prof. Opoku-Agyeman said the investment in textbooks and other initiatives by the ministry over the past two years had reflected in the improved performance of students in this year’s West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
“We are encouraged by the improved results of this year’s WASSCE which was spurred by the interventions that we put in place for the past two years. The efforts are yielding fruits, but we must not rest. We have to keep working hard as teachers, students, parents and education authorities to sustain the gains made as we go into the future,” she said.
Background
Many people had different interpretations to the 2016 WASSCE results that were released recently. While some held the view that the performance of the students was abysmal, educational authorities said the result showed a great improvement over that of last year.
The Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Jacob Kor, described the results as massive improvement. He congratulated teachers and urged them to continue to put in their best as the GES collaborated with other stakeholders to consolidate the gains.
