Accra, Oct. 26, GNA - Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak, Member of Parliament for Asawase on Friday said it was important as a country conscious efforts were made to identify and deal with the issue of poor performance both in the rural and urban schools to ensure that the children at least get the basic education right. "It is important as a country that we find out why this high numbers are failing. The recent performance of our JSS graduates is unacceptable."

Alhaji Mubarak made the observation when he read a statement on "The Future of JSS Students" on the floor of Parliament. He noted that for the past few years, after the results of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) are released "we all laugh over poor performance of the pupils as though it is just one of those things."

The MP said the just released results of the BECE revealed that many schools performed very poorly and almost 169,000 pupils throughout the country could not make the placement grade. He said another disturbing fact was that opportunity are not given to pupils who have failed to rewrite the examination while most headmasters in both rural and urban schools do not encourage these pupils to rewrite, adding; "they make it look as if it is not allowed and they are doing the parent a favour."

Alhaji Mubarak stressed that pupils in school register at a cost of about GH=A25.1 (51,000 cedis) and those rewriting are asked to pay about GH=A217.9p (179,000 cedis), which makes it very difficult for those who are really interested in rewriting to better their result for a better future.

"Mr Speaker, if care is not taken to ensure many pupils from JSS continue into SSS as possible, we could have, may God for bid, a situation of South Africa where economic indicators are better than many African countries but insecurity is about the highest in the whole world."

He said most of these boys and girls who fail or could not get placement are those who grow to be drug peddlers, arm rubbers, mobile phone snatchers, prostitutes, among others, since society has no alternative for them after failing or not getting placement. Alhaji Mubarak called on educational policymakers to sit up and come out with solutions to some of the problems, stating; "We cannot just assume a lesser faire attitude towards the future of our youth and country."

He advised the Ministry of Education to take supervision very serious and equip supervisors with, at least motorbikes to enhance their work.

He said communities should be educated on the need to support their children and policymakers should come out with a mode of punishment for parents who do not take care of their wards in school, adding that this could be done by creating avenue for pupils and other community members to report parents who are not interested in educating their children. Ms Christine Churcher, NPP-Cape Coast called on the Ministry of Education to have a second look at the compulsory score of five core subjects before a pupil could get a placement otherwise the gab in education would be widen.

Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, NDC-Wa West wondered whether it was the policy of the Ministry of Education for parents to pay admission fee upfront before their children are admitted into educational institutions and if it was so then the authorities should do something about it because sometimes MPs are forced to assist financially. 26 Oct. 07