What is the logic in spending huge on ‘pasco’ when students lack textbooks? -Mahama quizzes government
Former President John Dramani Mahama has expressed shock at the government’s high expenditure on examination Past questions whiles students do not have textbooks.
The former president expressed this shock during an interview on Moonlite FM as part of his “Thank You” tour this morning.
During the interview, Mr Mahama described as outrageous, the government’s decision to spend GHS68 million on Past questions for students at the Senior High schools when there are no textbooks for those in the Junior High Schools and basic schools.
“How much is the cost of a past question at WAEC?” he quizzed. “In our time we also used examination past questions. What we did was that instead of each person owning past questions, we all contributed monies to buy a unit of each subject and then our teacher will write it on the board for us to copy. So, if Mathematics, we buy one, if English we buy one then our teacher will write on the board for us to copy.” he said, describing that as a more prudent way of spending money.
He added this to Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman’s submission on the same topic. The running mate of Mr Mahama in the 2020 election who happened to the Minister of Education under his presidency said that the use of past questions was to help students familiarize themselves with WAEC’s examination format. To make this easier, her ministry recommended the use of the WAEC examination format for end of term exams right from SHS 2 so that by the time they were going to write their final exams, they would be very familiar with the examination format.
She, therefore, expressed shock on why there is much concentration on the purchase of examination past questions books to the detriment of provision of textbooks when this policy was available and more proactive.
Source: Heizel Joshua | myactiveonline.com
