The School Reopening Committee established to deliberate on modalities for the reopening of schools is expected to present a recommendation to the government on September 21, Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, the Director-General, Ghana Education Service (GES) announced.

The recommendation, Prof Opoku-Amankwa said would be submitted to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to make the final decision on the reopening of schools in the pre-tertiary sub-sector.

The Director-General announced on Friday in his opening remarks during a workshop on the GES Secondary Education Improvement Project in Larteh-Akuapem in the Eastern region.

The SEIP is a US$196 million World Bank credit facility to Ghana to improve 125 low-performing Senior High Schools in the country. It started in 2014 and is expected to end in November 2021.

Prof Opoku-Amankwa said Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister of Education on Thursday, August 20, inaugurated a 10-member committee chaired by Prof Dominic Fobih, a former Minister of Education and currently the chairman of the GETFund Board of Trustees and representatives from the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service, UNICEF, private school sector and parents.

Touching on the government’s initiative to give one hot meal a day to final year Junior High School (JHS) students, Prof Opoku-Amankwa said a committee headed by Mrs Frema Opare, the Chief of Staff was constituted to ensure effective implementation of the programme.

The Committee, according to him, was expected to come out with a comprehensive programme of action to ensure effective monitoring of the feeding initiative.

President Akufo-Addo in his 15th address to the nation announced that all final year JHS students are to be given one hot meal per day from Monday, August 24, after it was reported that some final year students had been “going hungry in complying with the Covid-19 protocols”.

The GES announced that 584,000 final year JHS students are to write this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) from 14 to 18 September 2020.

In line with the upcoming exams, BIC International, producers of pens and stationery, presented 100,000 pieces of pens to the GES to be distributed to BECE students in the deprived communities in the country.

Mr George Nkonsah, the Business Development Manager, Ghana, Togo and Benin for BIC International said their output had presented 100,000 pencils to the USAID Partnership for Education: Learning Activity in collaboration with the GES in support of an Early Grade Reading Programme implemented in 100 districts across the regions.

The USAID Partnership for Education: Learning is part of an integral project designed to support the Ministry of Education and the GES to improve reading performance in public schools in Ghana.

He said one key intervention of the programme was to increase the availability of quality materials to improve teaching and learning in over 7, 200 schools.

Prof Opoku Amankwa thanked BIC International for the donation, saying the gesture would encourage the students to learn and perform better.