Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education, has been cited in an alleged phantom World Bank training scheme of teachers costing $1.2 million.
The World Bank as part of its investigations to establish the training of the teachers as claimed by the Ministry of Education, wrote officially to the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, GES, to confirm when the said training took place.
But Prof Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, Director-General, GES, before he could respond to the World Bank letter, wrote to the Ministry asking for clarity of the training of over 40,000 teachers on the digital literacy platform under the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP).
Prof Opoku Amankwa in his letter to the ministry stated that he is “unaware that any such training has taken place.”
The letter also added, “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 GES boss further asked the sector Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum “to advice and provide direction to enable the GES to respond appropriately to the enquiries from the World Bank.”
The said letter dated March 30, 2022, was first published by Accra-based JoyNews.
The Education Ministry had written to the World Bank, November 30, to sanction a teacher training programme at the blind side of GES and requested for the release of $1.2 million amid claims it has successfully trained over 40,000 teachers under GALOP.
The letter signed by the Chief Director at the Education Ministry, Benjamin .K. Gyasi, on behalf of the Minister said, the selected teachers were offered training in 3 modules which included Recorded online training, Physical Training and Online/Virtual Live training.
In the conclusion, the Ministry told the World Bank that it has “exceeded the target of 40,000 teachers to be trained insisting PBC7.2B has been achieved.”
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
The World Bank further asked the “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”.
The Bank further asked the: “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 World Bank quizzed.
The World Bank asked the Education Minister to respond to the queries latest by close of day 14 January 2022, but the Minister remained silent on the queries for over 4 months.
This, forced the World Bank to write to the Director-General of the GES, Prof Kwasi Opoku Amamkwa demanding clarification of the claims by the ministry that over 40,000 teachers have been trained under GALOP.
