Catholic Bishops want agreement on mission schools
The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC) has called on the government to produce a partnership agreement on the management and operation of mission schools throughout the country.
It said such a partnership framework should ensure that the church was involved in and consulted on all policy changes and direction in the educational sector, instead of the current status where the church built schools and “the government comes in to supply teachers but the church is prevented from managing the school”, while it was also not invited to contribute to policy change.
“The Catholic Church in Ghana believes that for better collaboration with the state, there should be a documented partnership framework focused on problem-solving in the educational sector, rather than always lamenting about the weaknesses and failings in education,” the Catholic Bishop of Sunyani, the Most Rev Matthew Gyamfi, said when he presented the GCBC statement on partnership in education in Accra Tuesday.
He was addressing the opening of a two-day Joint National Conference on Education by the GCBC and the Ministry of Education which is being held on the theme: “Government and Faith-Based Organisations’ Partnership for Enhanced Quality Education”.
The Most Rev Gyamfi, who is also the Bishop responsible for Education at the National Catholic Secretariat (NCS), described the existing relationship between the church and the state in education as confused, unacceptable and unworkable, saying that doing nothing about it would create more problems for education delivery in the country.
“The partnership between the church and the state in Ghana dates long before independence but the partnership, until now, remains fluid and undocumented. The 1887 Education Ordinance endorses the principle that education could be better enhanced when religious bodies are supported financially in the building and management of schools,” he said.
He recalled that the 1999 Ekwow Spio-Garbrah document on the management of mission schools in Ghana recognised the right of educational units to manage and supervise educational institutions established and developed by their respective religious bodies, in partnership with the government.
The Most Rev Gyamfi said as of now, the nature and practice of the partnership between the government and religious bodies “was not clear”, hence the need for concrete action to be taken on the matter.
In an address read on his behalf, Education Minister, Mr Lee Ocran, promised that “the state and religious bodies’ partnership agreement towards enhancing education service delivery and governance in Ghana will be finalised, approved and well documented”.
He said all stakeholders should, therefore, work as a body in order to provide quality and holistic education to the country’s future leaders and workforce.
“The present government appreciates the roles being played by the managers of educational units in the supervision and management of schools established by religious bodies,” he said, and indicated that under the decentralisation system of educational delivery in the country, the roles of the educational units would have to be clearly specified.
Mr Ocran said it was a known fact that religious bodies had, over the years, collaborated with government in the provision of quality and sound education for Ghanaian children.
“Of late, through appointed committees like those of Prof Anamuah-Mensah (2002) and Prof Ansu Kyeremeh (2008), much has been done to correct the seeming marginalisation of the roles of religious bodies with schools in the management of these schools.
“Every effort will be made to finalise these arrangements between the religious bodies with schools and the government/state,” he said.
Mr Ocran said the Prof Ansu Kyeremeh Committee report, which reviewed the 1999 partnership document on education management within the context of current development in the educational sector, would be studied and approved by the Ministry of Education as soon as practicable.
A former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, Prof Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, said the meeting signified the importance stakeholders, especially faith-based organisations and educational practitioners, attached to the role of partnership in the effective delivery of education.
The Secretary-General of the NCS, Rev Fr Nicholas Afriyie, said the “establishment, management and direction of schools is a faith injunction imposed on the church by Jesus’ mandate to go and teach all nations and bring them to the knowledge of God”.
Over the years, he said, the church had sought to carry out the mandate of Christ by establishing schools and managing them in such a way as to achieve moral academic excellence in the students who passed through those schools.
Source: Daily Graphic