The Ghana National Association of Teachers has warned of looming danger ahead of the implementation of the new education reforms in September.

It envisaged that major problems that would confront the reforms include infrastructure, inadequate teaching and non-teaching staff and equipment for teaching and learning.

The executive members of the association led by its president, Joseph Kwaku Adjei pointed this out at an Editor’s forum held here at the weekend.

The forum, the first of its kind, was held in collaboration with the Ghana Journalists Association, (GJA).

Attended by editors, managers of media houses, education editors and reporters, the forum was aimed at providing a platform for members of the association to interact with the executive of GNAT, share ideas, discuss issues and exchange information.

The executive of GNAT spoke on wide range of issues, but zeroing on the new education reforms which is scheduled to take off in September, the executive including the General Secretary, Mrs Irene Duncan-Adanusa were unanimous in their view that the new reforms was bound to face serious problems the third year of its implementation if immediate steps were not taken to address these problems.

They explained that while the take off in September could be smooth, its third year would be confronted with problems of provision of extra classrooms, furniture, equipments, teachers and non-teaching staff to take care of the extra classes that would have to be created for the students who would be entering the fourth year.

According to them, majority of the schools do not have enough classrooms to accommodate the ever increasing population of students, yet they would have to make room for the large number that would be going into the fourth year.

They insisted that if immediate steps were not taken to address the problems, their members would be forced to reduce student intake from the beginning of the implementation of the reform" so that we will not be overwhelmed at the end of the third year"

"If we do that also, a large number of students will not get the opportunity to enter secondary school .These are some of the things that happened to the former reform and we are trying to correct, so the government should address these problems as soon as possible

"How are we supposed to take care of eight or more streams that will graduate to the fourth year when we do not have the facilities to accommodate them?", they asked.

The association estimated that more than 500 teachers and a number of non-teaching staff would have to be employed as additional staff to man the new classes and perform duties that would ensure a smooth transition.

"We welcome the reform, but we will continue to raise issues, contribute to the debate for solutions to be found".

The new education reforms to be implemented in September will replace the 1987 education reform which GNAT described as having failed to meet the general expectation in terms of coverage, quality, equitable access and economic utility.

The new reforms seek to change the present number of pre-tertiary education from 12 years to 13 and the Junior and Senior Secondary Schools to Junior and Senior High schools.

Source: The Ghanaian Times