Former Director-General of Ghana Education Service, Michael Nsowah, said the Second Lady's comments that schools should find ways of buying their own chalk, log books and other essentials is a gross display of ignorance.

According to him Mrs. Matilda Amissah-Arthur’s comments show that she has no clue what the FCUBE Document says about the different roles of parents and government towards schools and pupils.

Mr. Nsowah was reacting to a recent comment by Mrs. Amissah-Arthur that government has pampered schools for far too long with free uniforms and shoes for pupils and it was about time school heads must begin to look elsewhere for other essential teaching and learning materials.

The Second Lady was the guest of honor at a ceremony held at Kukurantumi Presby Primary School, where she presented five computers and accessories to the school.

At the ceremony, the Headmistress of the school, Juliet Oppong, made a request for items like chalk, log books and other essentials the school needs.

But the Second Lady, in her response, shocked the gathering including chiefs from the area when she said government had provided enough for schools so they should look elsewhere for the other items they need.

“Government has provided majority of the items you are asking for and we have also given pupils free uniforms and sandals so we will not bring any chalk or log books – you must look at other sources like old students’ associations, parents and others to supplement government effort”, the Second Lady said.

But Michael Nsowah said the Second Lady completely misfired because page 48 of the FCUBE Document mandates government to provide the essentials like chalk, pens, log books, registers and others for school, while parents are to provide school uniforms and shoes.

He said the necessary government interventions like free school uniforms for needy pupils are also captured in the FCUBE Document, but there is nothing like distribution of free shoes.

“This distribution of shoes is a misplaced priority and constitutes one of the wastages in the system,” he said.

“If you distribute 10,000 shoes while there are six million pupils what have you achieved,” the educationist asked.

Mr. Nsowah insisted that government must focus on its core mandate under the FCUBE rather than doing the unnecessary.

“Very often you find politicians who have no serious work to do going round from school to school with shoes in the car booths distributing to pupils, which is a total waste of national resources,” he said.

He is therefore asking Ghanaians to forgive the second lady for her unfortunate comments.