Education Minister fingered in $1.2 million ‘phantom’ training scandal

The Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has been fingered in an alleged phantom training scheme of teachers costing $1.2 million from the World Bank.

According to correspondences from his office and the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Director-General of the GES, Prof Kwasi Opoku Amamkwa appears unaware of the training of over 40,000 teachers on the digital literacy platform under the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP).

The World Bank as part of its investigations to establish the training of the teachers as claimed by the Education Ministry officially wrote to the Director-General of GES to confirm the said training. But a letter signed by Prof Opoku Amankwa observed that he is “unaware that any such training has taken place.”

The letter also added that “GES is unaware of reports and correspondence between the Education Ministry and the World Bank and is unable to make an informed response to the Banks request”.

The said letter dated 30th of March 2022 also asked the Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum “to advice and provide direction to enable the GES to respond appropriately to the enquiries from the World Bank.”

This lends credence to revelations that the Education Minister at the blind side of GES sanctioned the training and wrote to the World on November 30 requesting the release of $1.2 million amid claims it has successfully trained over 40,000 teachers under GALOP.

According to the Education Ministry, the teachers were offered training in 3 modules which include Recorded online training, Physical Training and Online/Virtual Live training.

The letter signed by the Chief Director at the Education Ministry, Benjamin .K. Gyasi and submitted to the World Bank concluded that it has “exceeded the target of 40,000 teachers to be trained insisting PBC7.2B has been achieved.” But sources at the World Bank say this is misleading.

The World Bank. upon receipt of the documents, asked the Education Ministry in email correspondence on January 7, 2022, to provide clarity to some of the information on the achievements in the training of the teachers including asking “MoE to explain the difference in the course content arguing the course do not seem to be the same as the training of the content set out in GALOP”.

In a series of queries, the Bank also asked: “MoE to share the slides for the training courses, as well as examples of the self-assessments teachers, were expected to do, so we have an understanding of the actual content”?

“Does MoE have any qualitative feedback from teachers who did the training that can give us a better understanding of whether they feel their distance learning skills have improved? If so, can they be shared?” the Bank quizzed.

It also called on the Education Ministry to “clarify whether the portal is linked (or if there is a plan to link) to student performance to demonstrate impact/result of the teacher digital literacy portal at classroom-level and to facilitate targeted adaptation of teaching for improved learning outcomes?”

Although the World Bank asked the Education Minister to respond to the queries latest by close of day 14 January 2022, but the education minister remained silent on the queries for over 4 months.

The loud silence of the Education Ministry forced the World Bank to write to the Director-General of the GES, Prof Kwasi Opoku Amamkwa seeking clarification of the claims by the ministry that over 40,000 teachers have been trained under GALOP.

Source: Myjoyonline