Government urged to tolerate divergent opinions

General News of Monday, April 15, 2019

Source: Graphic.com.gh

2019-04-15

Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang, a former Minister of Education, urged the government to tolerate teachers who express divergent views on its policies.

She expressed deep concern at the fact that some of the heads of institutions who had expressed their views on government policies had either been sacked, demoted or transferred, adding that democracy should not have space.

Naana Opoku Agyemang, who is also the first vice-chancellor in Ghana, gave a speech at a conference organized by the Youth Wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on "The State of the World". Education in Ghana today "at the University of Cape Coast. (UCC) last Thursday.

Academics, students, youth groups and NDC faithful celebrated this event.

Atmosphere of tolerance

"We have created, adopted, practiced and maintained an atmosphere of tolerance; We have never dismissed a director or teacher who expressed divergent opinions, "Naana Agyemang said. She added that education was meant to create a connection between minds, democracy, which should be the fusion of everyone's thoughts.

She said that in the past some people claimed that there was no chalk in the clbadroom or were trying to get the children to sleep on the floor, in the clbadrooms where there were clbad, the solution was not to work the muscles, to bark or to make people older. we kneel and excuse ourselves simply for expressing alternatives. "

Gains under Mahama

Naana Agyemang, who praised the gains made under President Mahama's mandate, said 1,129 blocks of clbad had been completed out of 2,011, the others being at various stages of completion.

"Today, more than 7,000 trained and certified teachers have failed sit-down exams and have become unemployable, depending on how the standards are implemented," she said.

Law Project

A former Deputy Minister of Education, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, co-panel member of Mr. Felix Kwakye Ofosu, a former Deputy Minister of Communication, traced the draft law on the subject. public university introduced by the government until 1964, under the responsibility of the UGCC. .

Mr. Ablakwa described the bill as "a brutal attack on the sacred principles of academic freedom and the autonomy of public universities".

He said that a careful review of the provision contained in the bill described a desperate program aimed at attacking the pillars of insulation and thereby hindering the management of higher education institutions, flagrant violation of Article 21 of the 1992 Constitution.

Kwakye said the government was usurping its powers by unnecessarily meddling in the affairs of public universities and calling on all actors to stand up and speak out against him.