Deputy Education Minister Mahama Ayariga (NDC) and the Danquah Institute’s Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko (NPP) have engaged in a debate over which of the two major political parties had the best education policy. While the two agreed that improving education was the best way forward, they disagreed sharply on how best to improve the public education system, clashing on issues including teacher improvement, the construction of new schools, and the parties' education records. Appearing Monday on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Mr. Ayariga and Mr. Otchere-Darko reechoed the debate that has been raging over the issue of education which has placed in the front burner in this election. The platforms Broadly speaking, Ayariga said that the NDC plan aims to strengthen the basic education programme and expand secondary education. At the basic level, they hope to eliminate all remaining schools under trees, and like the NPP, they plan to expand ICT training. At the secondary level, he says the NDC plans to build an additional 200 community day schools to accommodate 200,000 students total, with the shift away from the boarding school model making these schools cheaper to run. At both the basic and SHS levels, particularly basic, the NDC hopes to continue reducing the fees paid by parents. On the NPP side, Otchere-Darko mentioned his party’s intention to redefine basic education as kindergarten through SHS, which would become compulsory, and to introduce a new assessment tool in place of the BECE, which would become obsolete under the new definition of basic schooling. To expand secondary school access, he said that the NPP plans to build 350 new cluster schools and upgrade existing SHS institutions to accommodate 300 more students apiece. Costs On the subject of costs, Ayariga cited one analyst’s projection that the 200 new high schools would cost a total of GHS 900 billion, averaging out at GHS 4.5 million per school, though he could not estimate how many schools would be built each year. Otchere-Darko remarked that as Vice President, John Mahama had once projected that these schools would cost a total of GHS 200 billion. He then estimated the average cost of each of the NPP’s 350 cluster schools at GHS 2.1 million. The NPP budget, which also includes GHS 25 million annually on school buses and a GHS 58 million expansion to Technical and Vocational and Educational Training (TVET), would cost a total of GHS 755 million in 2013, GHS 965 million in 2014, GHS 1.2 billion in 2015, and GHS 1.45 billion in 2016. Capital expenditures, he said, would remain constant at GHS 670 million annually. Teacher quality Both men agreed on the need to improve teacher performance and tenure but offered different visions for how to achieve this objective. Ayariga said that in addition to the 10 teacher colleges that the NDC plans to create, it wants to expand from 9,000 to 17,000 the number of teachers annually put on paid leave to pursue self-improvement, often through education. He added that the NDC hopes to offer teachers in deprived areas 20% allowances and that infrastructure improvements planned the NDC should boost teacher morale. Otchere-Darko criticized the NDC’s plan to build the additional training colleges, claiming that the existing 38 teacher colleges are operating under capacity because of the NDC’s failure to pay their allowances. He said that NPP plans to expand technology and infrastructure improvements to rural schools and to improve teacher access to transportation and housing, especially in the countryside, should lead to an increase in teacher quality. Rewarding improving schools with increased funding or improved facilities would also enhance performance, he said.