Professor Damasus Tuurosong, the President of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS), has called on political parties to incorporate concerns of private educational institutions in their 2024 election manifestos.
He said the voices of private educational institutions ought to be heard in the political discourses in tackling challenges affecting them.
Addressing the opening session of the ninth Biennial Delegates Conference of the GNAPS in Techiman in the Bono East Region,?Prof Tuurosong announced that the GNAPS was dialoguing with the various political parties on how best they could capture their concerns in their manifesto.
This, he said, would help the parties to devise realistic means to tackle the challenges facing private educational institutions.
The three-day conference is on the theme ‘Election 2024: the private education manifesto ‘
Prof Tuurosong explained the theme for the conference reflected the ‘strategic intent to place the concerns and aspirations of private schools at
the forefront of political discourse.’
That would greatly ensure that their challenges and concerns are well acknowledged, appreciated and given the due considerations in the electioneering that will help shape educational policies in the country.
He said the New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), Convention People’s Party (CPP) and Progressive People’s Party (PPP) had responded positively to the concerns of the association.
Prof observed that the private education sector had over years contributed to the overall training, nurturing and producing the required human resource base for the nation.
He urged policymakers to take the lead in tackling the challenges impeding the growth of the sector.
That would create an enabling environment and well position the nation towards the attainment of quality education as enjoined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG4).
Mr Kwasi Adu-Gyan, the Bono East Regional Minister, indicated that education remained the bedrock for the
nation’s development, saying the private education sector played a vital role in achieving quality education.
‘Private schools and educational institutions bring on board diversity and a choice to the educational landscape as they offer a wide range of curricula and specialized programmes that cater for the varied interests and needs of students’, he stated.
Mr Adu-Gyan said competition in the education sector remained relevant to drive improvement and reforms in public schools, saying the region had about 189 private basic schools with a population of 11,236 pupils and students.
He commended GNAPS for its contribution in the education sector and added the government commitment to support them so that the nation could achieve good educational outcomes.
The Conference brought together members of the Association drawn from all the sixteen regions and would deliberate on ways to improve activities and operations of GNAPS.
Source: Ghana News Agency
