Deputy Education Minister-in-charge of Senior High School and TVAET, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has embarked on a tour of selected schools in the Greater Accra Region as part of efforts to obtain first-hand information on issues confronting the sector.

The move he noted afforded him the opportunity to access the quality of education and the shortfalls in the teaching and learning process.

Dr Adutwum addressing the press revealed during the tour that government had begun consultations with some well-established and best performing private schools in the country for a possible collaboration with the public sector schools.

He believed that this collaboration will help improve the public schools especially at the basic level as they would be privy to the learning methods and standards adopted by their private school counterparts that make them excel.

"I want to assure that we are looking at a collaboration between the private and the public sector and what you have done here when I look at your library facility, I was telling one of my media folks that why can't we have the same? If we want to have positive outcomes, what you have done that has given positive outcome should be replicated in some of our public schools and the goal here is to h=ensure that that collaboration is done"

The deputy Minister also made known government's plans to shift the WASSCE exams to May.

He was confident that the consultative talks and discussions currently being held with WAEC will be fruitful.

"The Minister wrote to WAEC to make sure they can push things so that the exams will be May/June but they said this year they could not do that because of other countries who are involved in this, we are not the only examining country. So for us to actually do that they have to work with other countries. So next year we are asking them that we want to do May/ June and not February, March and April"

He explained that the rationale was for "students to have more time to study".

The tour of the selected schools took him to the Labone Secondary School, Lekma cluster of schools, Nungua Secondary School, Morning Star and St Augustine Anglican School.

He assured the teachers and students that the challenges he has witnessed will be addressed to ensure that standards and quality of education improves.