The erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government established the Islamic Educational Unit at the Ghana Education Service (GES) to pave the way for Muslims to train their children in schools according to their religion and belief, National Chairman of the NDC Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has revealed.
He also claims that there is no other political party in the country that has the welfare and betterment of the Muslim Communities at heart than his party, NDC.
According to him, the love of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is manifested in the establishment of the Islamic Educational Unit.
The Islamic Education Unit (IEU) was established in 1987 by the then Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) which later became the NDC as an agency of the Ghana Education Service (GES) with the mandate to introduce the secular subjects pursued under the national curriculum into the Islamic schools.
The unit after some years, has seen massive progress in Islamic Education having Junior High Schools and Colleges across the country.
However, speaking at an event in the Offinso North District in the Ashanti Region to raise fund for the construction of an Islamic Technical School and clinic, Mr Asiedu Nketiah revealed that his party took such step to bring some kind of equality in the country’s educational system which was dominated by the Christian Educational units.
“We created the Islamic Education Unit because, though there are government schools, yet there were other missions under it like the Catholic Education Unit, Presbyterian Education Unit, and also the Anglican Education Unit.” So how come Muslims did not have Education Unit?” He asked.
He continued “when there is equality in sharing, nobody becomes envious or angry of his other. That is why we (NDC) decided to establish Islamic Education Unit. So we paved the for Islamic schools to be established to offer the opportunity to Muslims to train their children in school”.
“At the time we introduced this initiative, other political parties were making mockery of us and said the NDC was a Zongo party but today, they’ve all come to realized that there are good thing in the Zongo communities”, he subtly tackled the NPP