The Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education have been urged to propose a legislative instrument (LI) that will regulate the movement of basic school pupils at night.
The suggestion is aimed at getting educational policymakers and implementers to have greater control in regulating how pupils spend their time after school in order to ensure that they study a lot more and improve their academic performances.
The suggestion was made by the Central Region’s immediate past president of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Bright Bedzrah, at a forum held by the Regional Minister at Cape Coast on Monday.In his interview with journalists at the forum, Mr Bedzrah lamented: “These are the pupils supposed to sit down at night and learn, but you see them moving about town, sometimes twelve midnight, the whole night. There should be an LI preventing these children from roaming about in town at special times; it is possible.”
He argued that the issue has been one of the ‘ignored realities’ which factor into the low academic performance at the basic school level in the country.
Though the institution of regulations to monitor the movement of basic school children has been initiated by some districts and traditional authorities in some parts of the country, the former NAGRAT Regional President posits a nationalistic approach to the issue in terms of an LI is the way to go.
He also warned against any intention on the part of the government to introduce performance contracts for heads of schools and teachers without adequate input from teacher unions in the country.
“You are talking about contracts – it means you are talking about the rights of somebody, a decision between two or three people; we want this thing to be done properly, so open it for broader consultation,” Mr Bedzrah said.
He also called for the extension of the teacher motivation allowance at the Senior High School level to basic school teachers, arguing that “once there is something called teacher motivation, it must start from the basic level so that the basic teacher who equally has the same qualification and/or above those teaching at the secondary school should be given the same teacher motivation.”
The ex-NAGRAT boss stated that a critical look at issues concerning the capitation grant and resource provision at the basic school was needed as an indication of the government’s commitment to sanitizing the public basic school level.
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By: Joseph Ackon-Mensah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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