Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Education Minister, has been implicated in a $1.2 million World Bank-funded phantom teacher training scheme.
According to correspondence between his office and the Ghana Education Service (GES), Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, the Director-General of the GES, appears to be uninformed of the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project’s training of over 40,000 teachers on the digital literacy platform (GALOP).
The World Bank wrote to the Director-General of GES to confirm the said training as part of its investigation of the training of teachers as claimed by the Education Ministry.
Prof Opoku-Amankwa, on the other hand, stated in a letter that he is “unaware that such training has taken place.”
“GES is uninformed of reports and correspondence between the Education Ministry and the World Bank,” the letter said, “and is unable to reply to the Bank’s request in a timely manner.”
In the same letter, dated March 30, 2022, the Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, was also asked to “advise and provide instructions to enable the GES to respond correctly to the World Bank’s inquiries.”
This backs up reports that the Education Minister, working in tandem with GES, approved the training and requested $1.2 million from the World Bank on November 30 in response to assertions that GALOP had successfully taught over 40,000 teachers.
Teachers were given training in three categories, according to the Education Ministry: recorded online instruction, physical training, and online/virtual live training.
The letter to the World Bank, signed by Benjamin Gyasi, the Education Ministry’s Chief Director, concluded that the country had “exceeded the target of 40,000 teachers to be educated, insisting that PBC7.2B has been reached.”
However, World Bank sources claim that this is false.
Following receipt of the materials, the World Bank requested that the Education Ministry clarify some of the statistics on teacher training successes in an email letter dated January 7, 2022.
The clarification included a request for the “MoE to clarify the difference in the course material, arguing that the course does not appear to be the same as the content training set forth in GALOP.”
The Bank also requested that the “MoE disclose the slides for the training classes, as well as examples of the self-assessments teachers, were obliged to undertake, so we have a grasp of the actual material” in a series of questions.
“Does MoE have any qualitative feedback from teachers who did the training that can give us a better understanding of whether they feel their distance learning skills have improved? If so, can they be shared?” the Bank quizzed.
It also called on the Education Ministry to “clarify whether the portal is linked (or if there is a plan to link) to student performance to demonstrate the impact/result of the teacher digital literacy portal at the classroom level and to facilitate targeted adaptation of teaching for improved learning outcomes.”
Despite the World Bank’s request that the Education Minister respond to the questions by January 14, 2022, he is claimed to have remained silent for nearly four months.
The Education Ministry’s deafening silence prompted the World Bank to write to Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, Director-General of the GES, asking for clarification on the Ministry’s assertions that GALOP has educated nearly 40,000 teachers.
Credit: Myjoyonline.com
