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Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, a Deputy Minister of Education on Wednesday urged basic public schools to adopt some of the best practices in private schools that give them an edge in quality education delivery.

“I don’t understand why a private school will be doing well, and a public school next door would not be performing to the desired expectation,” Dr Adutwum, who is the MP for Bosomtwe Constituency, said in Accra.

The Deputy Minister, who is in Charge of Basic to Senior School Education, gave the advice when he toured some educational institutions in Accra, to acquaint himself with their academic works since re-opening a few days ago for the second term of the 2017/2018 academic year.

He visited the Morning Star School and the St Thomas Aquinas Senior High School, both in Cantonments; the Labone Senior High School in Labone; Teshie Southern Cluster of Schools and the Teshie Presbyterian Senior High School, both in Teshie; Nungua Senior High School and St Augustine Basic School, both in Nungua, Accra.

Dr Adutwum lauded the role of private schools in the nation’s education delivery and called for a collaboration between the two so that the public schools would adopt and adapt practices that made the private schools tick.

Dr Adutwum, who is also a teacher, interacted with the management, teachers, students and pupils of the schools he visited, taking some of them through exciting reading and mathematics lessons.

He emphasized that a collaboration between the private and the public schools would ensure that teachers would not have to travel outside at exorbitant costs for exchange programmes.

Dr Adutwum assured the public schools that the Ministry was reforming the educational system to ensure ample supply of logistics and supplies to put them on a better edge for enhanced quality delivery.

He commended Mrs Abena Kwakye, the Managing Director and teachers of the Morning Star School for the quality education delivery.
At the St Thomas Aquinas Senior High School, the Deputy Minister interacted with Mr Cyril Dadey, the Headmaster; the Very Reverend Benjamin Ohene, Assistant Headmaster and other teachers and students, assuring them of the necessary Government interventions to improve teaching and learning.

At the Labone Senior High School, Mrs Cynthia Obuonti, the Headmistress, appealed to the Deputy Minister for a school bus, a modern dining hall and more facilities to improve sanitation in the school.

At the Teshie Southern Cluster of Schools, the Deputy Minister, who carried out a reading lesson with pupils in one of the classes, was not impressed with the low attendance and low enrollment despite the location of the schools in a serene and conducive environment.

He urged the pupils to be serious with their studies as they prepare for the Basic Education Certificate Examination.

When the entourage got to the Teshie Presby Senior High School, the Deputy Minister was informed by the Headmaster, Mr Aaron Gyawu that the school intends converting into a boarding school, but the building meant for that purpose had been abandoned and the contract stalled.

The Deputy Minister assured the school that he would look into the report.

Dr Adutwum later visited the Nungua Senor High School and interacted with the Headmistress and the teachers, and later to the Saint Anglican Junior High, where the teachers called for security to be improved to prevent stealing of school properties and the school compound being turned into a brothel.