According to the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), a Civil Society Organization on Education, there is a schism between the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service leadership.
In a press release dated May 30, 2022, IFEST voiced worry over the Ministry's apparent marginalization of the GES in its activities.
The Ministry, according to IFEST, is rendering the GES ineffectual.
According to IFEST, the Ministry has ignored the GES in critical sector initiatives such as the National Standard Test (NST), School Calendar, and Heads of STEM Schools Recruitment.
According to IFEST, the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP) could not have been carried out without the explicit awareness and participation of the Ghanaian people.
The IFEST statement is reproduced here.
STATEMENT TO THE PRESS
IFEST EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION APPEARING TO SIDELINE THE GHANA EDUCATION SERVICE IN ITS OPERATIONS.
1. IFEST has been aware of a sequence of occurrences that might have a significant impact on Ghana's educational system. It is called an Education System because it is made up of numerous components that must all work together to fulfill the common aim of delivering high-quality education to individuals and increasing the country's human capital potential.
2. While the Ministry of Education has supervision responsibilities over all of its agencies, each of these agencies has distinct duties to fulfill in order for them to function effectively within the education ecosystem.
3. The Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ministry of Education's largest agency, is in charge of implementing approved national pre-tertiary educational policies and programs to ensure that all Ghanaian children of school-going age, regardless of tribe, gender, disability, religious or political affiliations, receive a quality formal education.
4. The GES' mission makes it nearly impossible for any decision or policy at the Pre-Tertiary level to be made without their participation, since they are the ones who carry out all of the policies that are mandated by law.
5. IFEST would like to warn the general public about four incidents in the education sector that point to an attempt to undermine the GES and make it obsolete in carrying out its mandate.
These are extremely concerning patterns that should not be ignored.
a. NATIONAL STANDARD TEST (NST): According to reliable sources, the GES, like many other institutions in the industry, was not in favor of the NST's proposed format. This went against the National Learning Assessment Framework and its related Operational Plan, which aimed to make the NST a school-based diagnostic test rather than an external examination administered by WAEC. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Ministry proceeded with the test, which was marred by misunderstanding. According to our studies, WAEC is still unable to provide a single result nearly six months later because most pupils did not darken the paper.
b. SCHOOL CALENDAR: We have had an inconsistent academic calendar for some time now, which is unusual of our pre-tertiary education sector. The GES has been in charge of the school academic calendar for many years, but the Ministry recently established a committee to design what they claimed would be a long-term stable academic calendar. The final outcome of this decision is public knowledge.
c. HEAD RECRUITMENT: According to documents made accessible to IFEST, significant choices were taken on the recruitment of Heads for newly established STEM schools. The teacher unions were opposed to this. Although the Ministry rejected this claim, there is enough evidence to suggest that NAGRAT was correct in their assertion.
d. GALOP BROUHAHA: Our argument that the Ministry of Education is increasingly juggling the roles of policy development and implementation, presenting the GES as ineffective, is backed up by the discussion on the GALOP Teacher Training problem. The World Bank's letter, the GES's correspondence, and the Ministry's press statements all show that the GES, which was tasked with carrying out this teacher training exercise, was ignored throughout the process. Without implying any motivations, IFEST finds it difficult to believe that such a project could have been carried out without the express knowledge and participation of the GES.