Executive Secretary of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST-Ghana), Dr. Peter Anti Partey, has said the government’s decision to change uniforms for public basic schools shows managers of the education sector do not have priorities.
He says there are many challenges confronting basic education that needs to be tackled, rather than changing uniforms.
He explains the curriculum reforms in 2007 which included the change in name from Junior Secondary School (JSS) to Junior High School (JHS) brought its own challenges, including the change in uniforms.
The problem, he maintained, soared in 2019 when reforms were made, with the change of uniforms taking centre stage of the discussions when pertinent issues have been relegated.
The Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has hinted of plans to change the brown and yellow uniforms worn by pupils of basic schools in the country.
According to him, this is part of the many transformational initiatives to revive basic education and make it attractive in the country.
“We are changing the uniforms of public basic schools in the country. The yellow and brown that you see now, you will see no more. Reformation is coming to a community near you, and you will see it,” he revealed.
But speaking on Ghana Tonight on TV3 Thursday, April 25, 2024, Dr. Partey indicated that the move is a wrong call considering previous experiences and the challenges that exist at the moment.
“We have had this issue of uniform changes for some time now and sometimes some of us in the education space think that our leaders actually do not have priorities. We first had this challenge when we did the curriculum reforms in 2007. There was a change of name and a change in uniform so we moved from the Junior Secondary School to Junior High School and then there was that talk of changes in the uniform.
“Unfortunately, the good things of the curriculum review all got lost because the conversation now turned to the change of name and the change in uniform. That was the time thag some of the mission schools started wearing their own uniforms and that is what we have been using till 2019 when we had another curriculum reform and unfortunately, this uniform came up again,” he said.
The Executive Secretary of IFEST-Ghana advised that infrastructural challenges, lack of motivation for teachers, shortage of teachers in some schools, lack of furniture for students amongst others are the real challenges any serious manager of education would consider tackling rather than changing school uniforms.
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