A retired educationist is expressing doubts over the capacity of churches to solely manage mission schools without government support. Former District Director of Education for Ahafo Ano South, Sampson Amofa-Krah, said the increasing cost of running educational institutions makes government involvement almost indispensable. He was speaking to Nhyira FM’s Kofi Asante Ennin on renewed calls by the Catholic Church to take over management of its schools. Even though Amofa-Krah said he appreciates their concerns and roles played in the education sector, he doubted their ability to successfully run the schools. “Government now recruits the students, it pays the teachers, government puts up the buildings and so on, and some places you get the communities or the churches supporting a bit, but basically the government doing almost everything. “… If the churches are going back to take over their primary schools, their secondary schools, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. But how do they go? Are they going to take over in the right sense of recruiting their teachers and paying them, in building their own school classrooms?” Touching on the Computerized Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), which the church said is depriving their wards from getting access to the mission schools, Mr Amofa-Krah took a swipe at people who hide behind protocol to circumvent laid down procedures for their parochial interest. He noted that there is nothing wrong with the system, only if, its implementation could be streamlined. “We must be grateful to those who thought about it and introduced it. “Every good programme we introduce in the country we have a problem with implementation, so I see that the problem is not with the system, the problem is with us...As a people we want to take advantage of everything and destroy it.” Story by Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana