Thursday, April 23, 2009

SHAME! Most Private schools are sub-standard!

Story: Hadiza Nuhhu Billa Quansah


The President of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS), Mr Godwin Sowah, has disclosed that most private schools are not up to standard in terms of infrastructure and performance.

Mr Sowah explained in an interview that some private schools did not employ qualified and experienced teachers and as a result, students did not receive the good tuition and that reflected in their poor performance.

“Some of the private schools are established by people who have little or no knowledge about education as a profession. Therefore, there is poor supervision of academic work, character training, discipline of teachers and students,” he added.

According to him, some proprietors of private schools had been basking in the widely held belief that private schools performed better therefore required huge investment for one’s child to be enrolled.

He said such schools hardly performed well but exploited innocent students and parents. “They are not bothered about the achievement of students as long as there are children in the classrooms paying fees,” he added.

He further expressed concern over the way and manner the Ghana Education Service (GES) handled the registration and licensing of schools at all levels of the educational system and said that practice had resulted in the springing up of all manner of schools.

Mr Sowah affirmed that even though GNAPS could recommend the closure of such schools, the GES had no means of checking the work and achievements of the schools because it lacked the logistics to inspect schools.

He said sometimes it became very difficult to close down such low standard private schools, especially where there might not be other schools in the community to be used as alternative facilities.

Mr Sowah disclosed that in order to arrest the situation, GNAPS would set up an inspectorate division to monitor the operations of private schools in the country before the end of 2009. 

According to him, the inspectorate office would advise school proprietors to operate in a safe and decent environment, adding that the office would have the legal authority and capacity to go public with some of its findings and concerns over private schools.


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