Two weeks ago, media reports were rife that Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has enrolled his child in a private Senior High School instead of a public school.
The report by the Daily Post newspaper detailed that Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum’s son is enrolled in the plush International Community School situated at Pakyi, near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
This was further echoed by the Deputy Ranking Member for Parliament’s Education Committee, Dr. Clement Apaak, who said the Minister has lost the moral right to justify the government’s Free Senior High School programme and claim that it is of high quality.
But the Minister denied the claims at a presser organised by the Information Ministry describing it as cheap politics as his son is not of age to be at the Senior High School.
“I think politics has taken a new low. My son should never be a part of my political career, and secondly, I don’t have a son who is old enough to be in a Senior High School… Suffice it to say that I have no further comment on that, my son is not old enough to be in the Senior High School.”
Despite the denial, further details have emerged that prove contrary to Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum’s earlier denial.
According to a Los Angeles-based Ghanaian and a former tutor of the boy, Nana Osei Poku, the Minister’s son who is an American by birth, relocated to Ghana, when his mother decided to join his father.
Justifying the decision by the Minister in a Facebook post, Nana Osei Poku who says he taught the boy Mathematics in the Middle School indicates that considering the fact that the boy had already been exposed to American curriculum from nursery to high school, a school that teaches similar curriculum was the only option.
Nana Osei Poku indicates that the decision is not wrong as some Ghanaians want to portray as the boy desires to follow his father’s footsteps by attending a University in California.
He argues that it is only appropriate that the boy attends a school whose curriculum is tailored or similar to the American curriculum.
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Yes. This boy is an American by birth. I taught him Middle School Math before joining his parents when his mother decided finally to join his father, the education minister. The curriculum in international Community school in Ghana as pertains elsewhere is either England curriculum/American curriculum or an adapted version of the two.
For the American boy to continue the curriculum he has been exposed to from nursery to high school, the best place is the international community school so as to be able to continue his career pathway in a university in California where he comes from.For my kids who joined me 3 weeks before the lockdown. There’s a program for them to be abreast with the California Common Core State Standards for foreign students known as ELLs.
They are given food for free and if I can’t afford internet for online classes they’re given free hotspots to be able to connect to the zoom class.Even during the lockdown the money is put on a card and mailed to me to feed them so as to be regular and punctual in class. The card is made such that only food, non alcoholic drinks, I mean edible can be bought by using the card. I risk going to jail if I fail to do so. All this is happening because the GES curriculum which my kids had been introduced to is different from the California curriculum.
The innocent boy’s enrollment has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MINISTER’S LACK OF FAITH IN THE FREE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL POLICY
