Catholic Church launches project to strengthen partnership with State on education
The National Catholic Secretariat (NCS) has launched the “Star Partnership Project on Education”, to deepen and strengthen partnership between the State and the Church on the improvement of education in Ghana.
The Project among other things would support dialogue, negotiations and lobby processes that would lead to the formalization of partnership framework between government and the Church.
Similarly, the partnership framework would ensure that the Church would be involved and consulted on all policy change and direction in the education sector other than the current status where the Church built schools and the Government supplied teachers but the former did not contribute policy change.
The launch, which took place in Koforidua on Thursday, was under the theme: “Government and Church partnership towards enhancing education service delivery and governance”.
Regional Managers of Catholic Education Units across the country, Diocesan Development Officers, Diocesan Bishops and all who mattered in education in the Catholic Church attended the function.
According to Mr Samuel Zan-Akologo, Executive Secretary, Department of the Human Development of the NCS, the partnership between the Church and the State dated long before independence but the partnership until now remained fluid and undocumented.
He said the Catholic Bishops Conference since 1999, had taken serious steps to influence the Government to review their partnership in education and a joint committee subsequently drafted a new partnership agreement between government and the religious bodies in the management of mission schools.
Mr Zan-Akologo said the report of the new partnership was submitted in 2008 but sadly, the new partnership document had not been formalized by government’s endorsement and indicated that the meeting was to plan and strategize to step up the partnership for the benefit of education.
According to him, the Catholic Church believes that for a better collaboration with the state, there should be a documented partnership framework focused on problem-solving in the education sector than always lamenting about the weaknesses and failings in education.
Source: GNA