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 Samuel Asare Akuamoah Deputy Chair, NCCE
Samuel Asare Akuamoah Deputy Chair, NCCE

NCCE pushes for civic education in curriculum

The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) is advocating the adoption of civic education in the Ghana Education Service (GES) curriculum for schools. Deputy Chairman in charge of Operations at the NCCE, Samuel Asare Akuamoah, in an interview with the press said the absence of the course in schools was a major contributory factor affecting the fight against corruption.

“This is because the young ones are not well armed to join the fight; they only see people with riches and power as their role models and end up associating with them,” he said.

According to the commission, the delay in the adoption of civic education, and by extension, the Constitution in the GES curriculum, hindered their objective and mandate, particularly in relation to the youth.

Manual on civic education

The NCCE has developed a manual on civic education and the adoption of it into the GES curriculum will have a great impact developing the capacity of the youth and children in civic responsibility.

The commission is of the view that introducing the Constitution and its prescriptions to schoolchildren at a younger age will facilitate the understanding of their rights and civic responsibilities and this will have an overall impact on the fight against corruption.

“Civic education is a shared responsibility. Therefore, the support and collaboration between NCCE and other institutions in the country should be encouraged,” he stated.

He said the manual had already been piloted in the Central Region specifically at Winneba and its surrounding areas “which proved to be a very powerful tool in [producing] good citizens”.

He said the introduction of the course in the school curriculum would improve the Ghanaian value system which included; transparency, accountability, nationalism and respect for national and cultural values.

Mr Akuamoah noted that the lackadaisical approach towards the adoption of the manual by GES could be linked to the existence of the moral and religious component of the GES curriculum which he said did not address the gap and needed to be looked at.

Ghana Anti-Corruption

The Deputy Chairman in charge of Operations spoke at the sidelines of the Ghana

Anti-Corruption, Rule of Law and Accountability Programme (ARAP) multi-stakeholder training workshop on capacity building for law enforcement agencies and public education providers.

The three-day workshop, which was held at Ada in the Greater Accra Region, was organised by ARAP in collaboration with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) NCCE Education and funded by the European Union (EU) delegation to Ghana.

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, the Director of Anti-Corruption at CHRAJ, Mr Charles Ayamdoo, was unhappy with the low level of involvement and participation of stakeholders towards the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) in the fight against corruption.

He said although there had been an increase in the number of participating institutions, the rate of increase was not encouraging.

19 stakeholders/institutions

He said in the first year of the implementation of the programme in 2014, 19 stakeholders/institutions reported on the implementation of their activities under NACAP; this had, however, increased to 55 stakeholders at the end of 2016.

“Though we have seen an increase from 19 to 55 stakeholder participation, the increase is not as expected since there are about 200 public institutions, 216 MMDAs and about 3500 CSOs in the country,” he noted.

He added that the low participation and involvement of the institutions in adopting the NACAP could be attributed to lack of awareness of NACAP activities, and added that his outfit was working hard to address it.

“We are currently addressing this challenge and we also have assurances from the current government to support NACAP achieve its objectives,” he added.

NACAP

He hinted that NACAP had presented its first Annual Progress Report to Parliament for consideration and approval after which CHRAJ was expected to use the approved document to produce the state of corruption in Ghana to be presented to the general public in December this year.

 

The main aim of the NACAP programme was to ensure that all stakeholders agreed to contextualise and mobilise all resources to combat corruption in the country.

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