A very skilful labour force holds the key to the rapid socio-economic development of the country.
A totally literate population is the most desirable thing that every government should aim at, but in our circumstances as a Third World country, this is a tall order.
Nonetheless, we as a nation, can use both formal and informal means to make our people numerate and literate for them to contribute more meaningfully to nation building.
This, no doubt, explains why our governments spend the biggest portion of the national budget on education.
For quite some time now, the government and the opposition have been engaged in polemics on the best way to improve access to education; and how to attain quality education at affordable cost.
Beyond the debate, there are bigger issues that confront the authorities in efforts at delivering quality education to all children of school age.
Besides access and cost, there are two major challenges that require urgent attention if the quality envisaged by the government and other stakeholders is to be achieved.
Ever since Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang assumed office as the Minister of Education, she has been working hard to cure one major ill in the educational sector which is threatening to bring the whole educational architecture down.
Teacher absenteeism is a canker that is undermining the quality of education in the country.
This phenomenom is very common in the rural and peri-urban areas where teachers have taken advantage of the lack of supervision to have their way.
Gone are the days when both teachers and pupils dreaded the visit by the school inspector who could descend on any school unannounced and ask a teacher to conduct a class session.
The Minister of Education is also fighting another problem in the educational sector — the over-concentration of teachers in the urban centres, to the detriment of the rural settings.
Already, the teacher unions have raised the red flag over the implementation of the exercise to transfer teachers from the cities to the rural areas, citing the lack of consultation as the reason.
We know the exercise is to ensure the even distribution of teachers across the country, so that every village can have access to quality education.
The Daily Graphic thinks this initiative is key to reversing the downward trend in education in recent times.
We, therefore, urge the Ministry of Education to step up stakeholder consultation on these matters in order to get the buy-in from the teacher unions.
The Daily Graphic urges other stakeholders such as the communities, religious bodies and parents to support the Ministry of Education in its endeavour to end the lop-sided distribution of teachers and teacher absenteeism.
