Ghana’s Catholic Bishops Decry “upsurge in social vices”, Church-State Partnership “non-compliance”

For instance, he said, “some appointments and transfers to and from Catholic schools without recourse to the Church leave the Church wondering whether there exists a partnership.”

The GCBC Vice President also expressed the Catholic Church’s concerns about “the dissemination of information on educational matters without reaching out to a major stakeholder in education such as the Catholic Church.”

“Since Catholic schools are an extension of the Church’s faith, the Church wishes to humbly appeal to His Excellency, the President of the Republic to consider posting newly recruited teachers who are Catholics to Catholic schools to keep the Catholic faith alive in Catholic schools so that we do not lose our identity in our own schools,” Bishop Kofi said.

He went on to fault the exclusion of “the Mission/Unit representatives of the Church on the Ghana Education Council”, which he said was “withdrawn in the revised Education Act approved by the 8th Parliament of the 4th Republic.”

“Let us all seize this opportunity to remind ourselves about the Memorandum of Understanding that exists between the government of Ghana and the Mission/Unit schools for effective collaboration and unity of purpose in the delivery of desired educational outcomes,” he said. 

The Ghanaian Catholic Bishop, who has been at the helm of Ho Diocese since his Episcopal Consecration in October 2015 said that the Catholic Church expects to receive a formal policy directive from the committee regarding the partnership between Mission/Unit schools and the government in the management and delivery of quality education.

The two-day education forum that concluded on February 19 took place in Ho in Ghana’s Volta region under the theme, “Transforming Education for a Sustainable Future”.

In his address, Bishop Kofi of Ho Diocese said that education is universally recognized as the foundation of economic growth and development, as well as a powerful catalyst for positive social transformation.

“The importance of education to an economy cannot be overemphasized, especially in this 4th industrial revolution. Hence, the need to do everything possible under the sun to continuously make it relevant to the changing needs of society,” the Vice President of GCBC said.

He commended Ghana’s President, John Dramani Mahama, for convening the Forum to assess the current education system and provide recommendations, noting that the initiative aligns with the Catholic Church’s upcoming Second Education Forum, scheduled for March 10–15.

Bishop Kofi said that the planned Catholic Forum is to be realized under the theme, “Catholic Education for Integral Development: Shaping a Resilient and Inclusive Ghana.”

“The themes for both the national and the Catholic fora speak volumes about the fact that education has to undergo some drastic transformation to bring about the needed teaching and learning outcomes for the world of work and a better society,” the SVD Bishop in Ghana said.