NGO holds capacity building workshop for school managers

Members of School Management Committees (SMCs) from 25 selected communities of the Central and Greater-Accra regions, have been urged to help improve academic standards in their localities.

Mr Jacob A. M. Kor, Central Regional Director of Education, made the call in Winneba at the close of a capacity-building workshop organised by Plan Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO).

The five-day programme was aimed at equipping participants with skills and knowledge on their roles and responsibilities as SMC members to complement efforts by Government and other organisations to ensure quality education for the youth.

Participants were drawn from the Effutu Municipality, Abura-Asiebu-Kwamankese, Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam,  Mfantsiman, Ga South, Agona East, and  Gomoa East districts.

Mr Kor expressed concern about the zero percent score at the Basic Education Certificate Examination by some schools in the region over the past years and said the situation was not the best.

He, therefore, appealed to stakeholders in education, including corporate and  and religious bodies, NGOs, SMCs, Parent Teacher Associations and traditional authorities, to identify the causes of such dispiriting results and help find workable solutions to them.

Mr Kor commended Plan Ghana for its support to young children in the Central Region and expressed the hope that this would contribute positively towards their development for a brighter Ghana.

Mrs Josephine Kuffor-Duah, workshop consultant, lauded the participants for exhibiting maturity and urged them to use the knowledge acquired to revamp the SMCs in their various localities to ensure quality education.

Mr Benjamin Boateng, Central Regional Programme Manager of Plan Ghana, said even though the NGO had for the past 18 years constructed and furnished schools with teaching and learning materials, the academic standards of the pupils remained the same.

He said the NGO had instituted training programmes for SMCs to help groom the children to make them productive future leaders.

The programme, facilitated by trainers from the Central Regional Directorate of Education led by Mr Thomas Kwofie, took participants through Educational Policy Initiatives, Interventions and Guidelines, Improving Quality Education through Teaching and Learning, Problem Solving and Development of Action Plan among other topics.

Source: GNA