Accountability in education sector vital — Experts
Experts in the field of education have called for the strengthening of accountability within the sector.
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That, they said, would ensure improved learning outcomes and a quality educational system. They also called for measurable outcomes to ensure accountability in the education sector.
Experts
The experts who made the call were a former President of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Philippa Larsen; a former acting Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Charles Aheto-Tsegah; the Board Chairman of the National Teaching Council, Anis Haffar, and the Dean of Academic City University College, Prof. Enoch Opoku Antwi.
They were speaking at a Panel of Experts Discussion on the Education Accountability Framework (EAF) in Accra yesterday.
EAF
The EAF was developed in 2018 by the Ministry of Education (MoE) to improve learning outcomes in schools. This was after it realised that accountability was one of the factors affecting learning outcomes in the education system.
The EAF defines the roles and responsibilities of all the actors of the system right from the national to school level to ensure they were all accountable to learning outcomes.
Ms Larsen stressed the need for community engagement to ensure the decentralisation of teachers for effective accountability.
Communities
She said it was important to allow the various communities to identify indigenous talents within their areas who after their training would be reposted to contribute their quota towards national development.
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She also called for a transparent policy direction on teacher deployment.
Mr Aheto-Tsegah, among other measures, said gaps, learning outcomes and data were essential in ensuring that there was a consistent tracking of what happened within the school system.
"My mantra in this discussion is, ‘what is not taught cannot be measured’. So, that for me is the beginning of the whole discussion about the gaps," he emphasised.
He said it was critical that going forward, “there was the need for us to put all the agencies who are within the system together to be able to discuss what has to be done".
Importance
For his part, Mr Haffar said accountability was very important in the area of education and that in doing so people should be given responsibilities.
He, however, stressed that it would be impossible to have any system of accountability without the education management information system (EMIS).
He said with the EMIS, "we need to have an idea on what everybody else is doing". Prof. Antwi said accountability, to him, was a person's character in action.
"Accountability starts with our character and action. We have been focusing on the written aspect of accountability but what about the soft skills?" he asked.
He said in a nutshell, everyone, including parents, teachers, education authorities and communities were accountable for the holistic education of children across the country.
Institutionalisation
Earlier, the Education Office Director of USAID, Rasheena Reid, said institutionalising accountability in the education sector demanded a multi-pronged approach that aligned with certain key processes.
The processes, she said, included school inspection, national assessments, data systems and evidence-based decision-making - all with the ultimate goal of improving learning outcomes.
The Deputy Chief of Party for Strengthening Accountability in Ghana’s Education System (SAGES) Activity, Mohammed Dawuda, said the overall goal of education was to improve learning outcomes.
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"So, whatever any system actor is doing is geared towards contributing to learning outcomes," he said.
