Investments made by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in the educational sector over the past few years have started yielding massive results, President John Dramani Mahama has said.

Speaking during his last State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Thursday January 5, he said: “At the start of our term in office, for many years prior, there has been national dissatisfaction with the declining standards of education at the basic and secondary levels; lack of access to both basic and secondary education has meant that many children were being left behind.

“The shortage of professionally trained teachers, teacher absenteeism, shortage of textbooks resulting in a situation in which four children share one text book, there were dilapidated schools, lack of science laboratories, among others manifested in the declining results at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

“Our vision under my administration has been to turn this situation around and not only improve access to education but also improve the quality of education.”

To that end, he said: “There has been significant improvement in educational outcomes, more children than ever before in our history are having access to education at the basic and secondary levels.

“With the distribution of free textbooks, children have access to all the four textbooks and no longer have to share. In excess of 2000 dilapidated schools have been refurbished. Teachers are more available and are more evenly distributed than has been the case in the past. Teacher absenteeism is down from 27 per cent to below nine per cent. The community senior high day schools mean that more students are able to continue their senior high education. These investments we have made are yielding results and is reflecting in the performance of our children. The results in the BECE and the WASSCE have seen remarkable improvement.”