Eduwatch and Others Flop VP Bawumia’s Laptops To Replace Textbooks antics, call it an ill-informed and misplaced priority
Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), and the Civil Society Organisations
(CSOs) The platform on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have flopped VP Bawumia’s Laptop To Replace Textbooks Antics. The Group has called on the Vice President and the government to stop the wasteful spending and redirect scarce resources where they are needed most in the education sector. The call comes after Vice President Bawumia announced that the government was going to replace SHS textbooks with laptops.
They also added that the decision by the government to replace SHS textbooks with laptops was an ill-informed decision that must be shelved immediately.
“Plans to procure 1.3 million laptops for SHS students are ill-informed, and not backed by any feasibility study, nor informed by education objectives.”
“Plans to procure 1.3 million laptops for SHS students contradicts international best practice in the use of laptops in schools. Plans to procure 1.3 million laptops for SHS students do not represent efficient and prioritized use of public funds in the face of staggering evidence of textbook and desk deficits in basic schools.:
The pres statement stated.
Below is the full press release
PRESS BRIEFING
CIVIL SOCIETY POSITION ON THE GOVERNMENT’S INTENTION TO REPLACE TEXTBOOKS WITH LAPTOPS IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS
Introduction
Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) and the Civil Society Organisations
(CSOs) Platform on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) represents over 500 organizations advocating spending efficiency and equitable financing of education in Ghana.
Background
On 28th May 2021, the Ghana Education Service (GES) announced that the full compliments of Core Textbooks have already been supplied to Senior High Schools (SHS), with textbooks in the elective subjects also supplied to all SHS libraries to facilitate learning under the free SHS programme. This was touted as an unprecedented achievement, and rightly so, a commendable feat which cost hundreds of millions of Ghana cedis to deliver.
It is instructive to note that, as a matter of convention, the GES supplies new textbooks every five (5) years to take care of the physical depreciation – wear and tear.
On 17th January 2023, His Excellency the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia announced at the opening of the 2023 Annual New Year School and Conference at the University of Ghana that, the government intended to distribute free TABLETS to all SHS students to facilitate access to e-textbooks, past questions, and other relevant learning content.
Four months after, on 27th May 2023, His Excellency the Vice President, Dr Bawumia announced at the 60th Anniversary celebration of the Hohoe Evangelical Presbyterian SHS that, the government through the Ministry of Education is preparing to replace textbooks with LAPTOPS in SHS across the country. There is a modicum of research to establish the fact that, while laptops are useful learning resources that expose learners to an ICT culture and enable access to other relevant digital learning content, they cannot replace printed textbooks.
The complementary role laptops play with textbooks is affirmed in international best practices in education.
Years after going digital in high schools, the governments of many advanced countries continue to provide printed textbooks to facilitate learning. This is simply because laptops cannot replace printed textbooks due to the level of reliability of printed textbooks over laptops. Countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa are useful case studies.
The basis for the policy
Civil Society is begging for answers on the science and data that informed the government’s decision to consider procuring laptops
for 1.3 million SHS students as a replacement for printed textbooks.
Where is the feasibility study? When was this conducted (if any) and which stakeholder engagement was undertaken on this report before taking such a billion-cedi decision? Were teachers consulted? Was academia consulted? What about Parliament and CSOs working in the education space?
Unprioritized spending
There are adequate textbooks in SHS, which government rightfully touts as an achievement. If so, why the rush to procure Laptops
with e-textbooks to replace existing printed textbooks in SHS at a time basic schools are struggling to get adequate printed textbooks, four (4) years into the primary school curriculum and two (2) years into the new Junior High School (JHS) curriculum?
Just this Monday, 5th June 2023, the Daily Graphic reported that municipal and district directors of education, and headteachers of some basic schools in the Central region were demanding a supply of the full complement of textbooks to ensure effective implementation of the new curricula; a situation prevalent in many municipalities and districts across the country.
Why is the government interested in spending over a billion cedis on complimentary laptops for SHS students when about 2 million
basic school pupils lack desks, with some 5,000 schools still existing under trees, sheds and dilapidated structures? For the avoidance
of doubt, less than 50 per cent of the estimated cost of the 1.3 million laptops can solve the entire desk problem in our basic schools.
Experience with Teacher Laptops
On 13th November 2020, the Ministry of Education signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with KA Technologies for the supply of 280,000 laptops to teachers under the government’s one teacher one laptop programme which was launched by His
Excellency the Vice President. According to the MoU, the 280,000 laptops were to be delivered before November 2021. Today, 19 months after the deadline for the delivery of the said laptops, thousands of teachers are yet to receive theirs. If the Ministry of
Education has not been able to deliver 280,000 laptops 19 months after schedule, how can it conceive the idea of delivering 1.3 million
laptops?
Experience with free calculators procured in 2020 In 2020, the Ministry of Education promised to supply over 853,000 free scientific calculators to SHS candidates writing the 2020 WASSCE.
The justification was that the non-programmable calculators were urgently needed within weeks to prevent examination malpractice. Apart from some of the calculators arriving after the examination, defeating its very essence, 30 months after, the Ministry of Education has still not been able to provide half of the envisioned 853,000 calculators.
The management of free Wi-Fi in Educational Institutions In November 2020, His Excellency the Vice President launched
government’s free Wi-Fi programme for SHS and other educational institutions. About 700 SHS benefitted from the initial installation.
Preliminary results of an ongoing service effectiveness survey in 100 randomly sampled SHS where the Wi-Fi was installed indicate that, out of the 85 schools that have responded so far, 81% (i.e,. 69 schools) are currently not enjoying the Wi-Fi. Apart from the poor maintenance culture in the education sector, it is worthy of note that lessons for the successful introduction of laptops and tablets in schools (to complement printed textbooks), are hinged on the availability of reliable internet, which is not available in our SHS.
Expensive maintenance requirement
The average SHS has about 3,000 students. While there are some schools with less than 3,000, others like the Presbyterian SHS
(Presec) Legon have over 5,000. In view of the high numbers in SHS and flowing from the maintenance arrangement under the one
teacher-one laptop initiative, any effective one laptop per student programme must be built on a school-based maintenance
framework that employs full-time laptop repairers/technicians to provide real-time maintenance, technical support, and repairs to
students.
Do we have the financial capacity to afford such an expensive enterprise, bearing in mind the huge financing gap in the education sector, especially at the basic level? The struggle to provide uninterrupted electricity supply in SHS
SHS continue to struggle to find money to pay electricity bills due to systemic delayed releases of administrative grant under the free
SHS programme. Administrative grants sometimes run into arrears of over a year, causing some SHS heads to borrow money to run schools.
As a result, the phenomenon of electricity in SHS being disconnected by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for nonpayment of electricity bills, is not uncommon.
In April 2023, the ECG disconnected Mfantsiman Girls SHS from the national grid for owing over 300,000 in debt on electricity bills.
Other schools disconnected in the central region alone included Mando SHTS, Besease SHS, Enyan Denkyira Senior High Technical
School, Enyan Abaasa Technical Institute, Enyan Maim Community Day SHS, John Evans Atta Mills SHS and Ekumfi TI Ahmadiyya SHS.
If SHS cannot pay for electricity costs today, how can they contain the additional cost of charging 3,000 laptops daily in school? How
can students read their e-textbooks when there is no electricity?
Education sector and austerity Ghana has just entered an IMF programme, launching the economy into austerity. The Ministry of Finance has responded to the austerity era with expenditure cuts to basic education and related budgets and limitations imposed on the hiring of teachers and education workers. Plans to spend over a billion cedis to procure 1.3 million laptops for SHS students to replace printed textbooks, in a period of adequate supply of printed textbooks in SHS does not reflect austerity spending.
Conclusion
We, the undersigned CSOs submit that e-textbooks can never replace printed textbooks, but rather complement them. We
further, conclude that:
a. Plans to procure 1.3 million laptops for SHS students are ill-informed, and not backed by any feasibility study, nor informed by education objectives.
b. Plans to procure 1.3 million laptops for SHS students contradicts international best practice in the use of laptops in schools.
c. Plans to procure 1.3 million laptops for SHS students do not represent efficient and prioritised use of public funds in the face of staggering evidence of textbook and desk deficits in basic schools.
d. Plans to spend over a billion cedis on laptops for e-textbooks for SHS students at a time there are adequate printed textbooks in SHS, are inconsistent with the austerity period Ghana finds itself in, more so when brutal cuts have been inflicted on the basic education budget.
e. The Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service and SHS cannot manage 1.3 million laptops based on past and present
evidence of poor management of ICT facilities and items. Our Call and recommendations Based on the above, we respectfully call on the government to immediately discontinue the initiative, and ensure that basic schools have the full complement of textbooks. To pursue digital learning in SHS, the government should invest in ICT libraries in SHS, and strengthen the quality and reliability of internet services and maintenance of ICT equipment in SHS.
While CSOs are in total support of government’s education transformation agenda through among others digital inclusion
within the public education system, the approaches we adopt must reflect spending efficiency, equitable and prioritized spending,
especially in this period of austerity where the education budget has been significantly cut down to below the minimum international benchmark of 15 per cent.
We call on Parliament to reject any portion of this arrangement that appears before the House, especially an anticipated request for Tax Exemption We shall continue to urge the Ministry of Education to consult stakeholders, including CSOs, before hatching such audacious initiatives.
The lack of prior consultation on major decisions of the Ministry of Education is a major challenge the government must address in the
education sector.
READ: How WAEC Will Set 2023 BECE Questions According To Rumors
Thank you for your attention.
Cc:
The Chief of Staff, Office of the President.
The Minister of Education.
The Chairman, Parliamentary Select Committee on Education
Accra, 7th June, 2023.
Kofi Asare Bernice Mpere-Gyekye Levlyn Konadu Asiedu
Executive Director National Coordinator National Coordinator
Africa Education Watch GNECC Ghana CSOs Platform on SDGs
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