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Dr. Mary Coleman, Ghana Medical Association:
I am glad you mentioned that you are going to do something about
maternal mortality. Fortunately we got some money from the
British Government and we understand it is to be put into free
antenatal care. As an obstetrician gynaecologist do you think that
that is the best way to address the problem we have at hand
Dr. Mahama:
We must ask, how do we continue, after the British Government's
funding to us dries up I am thinking of how we will continue with
that programme. Definitely, the health maintenance that I am
talking about will promote this.
What I have in my clinic is a school for pregnant women. We don't
charge for the service. Whether you are my patient or not my
patient, you can come. Because I believe the quality of the
Ghanaian of tomorrow starts with the one in the mother's womb. I
am sure there are a lot of people doing what I am doing. What we
need to do is to identify those benevolent and private individuals
out there. Ghanaians are doing a lot but we do not coordinate what
they are doing into national programmes and policies. When we
do that you will see that we will get over our problems in a very
short time.
Mr. Alex Frimpong, Ghana Employers' Association:
In Dr Mahama's speech he obviously referred to productivity as
one of the critical issues that he will be looking at. But from a
broader perspective education, vocational training and lifelong
learning are very critical to people finding their feet in the world
of work, productivity and sustainable enterprise development.
Where people have low wages, low incomes and low productivity
it actually eliminates them from participating in economic growth
and development and even for employers it has a lot of impact on
their taking part in mobilisation and competitiveness. How will
you help improve the relevant skills in the country and also
address the issue of competitiveness of employers
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I think that the way to go is to let agencies and departments feel
secure enough and I hope the media should do the same thing.
They should be free to do what they think is necessary. Sometimes
they don't know how the President wants a particular situation to
go so they try to second-guess him. So either they don't act or they
act in a way that is more or less denying even their own
conscience. If the IGP is a man of integrity, then he will be free to
take decisions that he sees necessary. We are all under the same
roof, the President and the IGP.
Mr. Ohene Nkansah, GNAT:
You have spoken very well and I like your clarity of expression.
Continue with it. Regarding introducing a course on thinking; the
problem is how should that course be covered. What teaching
models should Ghanaian teachers adopt in order to impart this
new course
The second point is whether the PNC has a national character.
And the other issue is that economic development starts from the
classroom. Now precepts and incepts have become very, very
expensive. Is our Government preparing to accept appropriate
percentage in the GDP within the education budget that is
targeted with teacher professional development expenditure in the
country
Dr. Mahama:
Some time ago we closed teacher training colleges and then we
ran into a situation where we had no teachers. Again we are
increasing enrolment but we haven't sat down to look ahead. I
remember the chairman and I went to GNAT when we were
talking about the school feeding programme. What we wanted to
find out was how many children were out there that should be in
school; what would happen if they all flooded the classrooms;
how would we handle them That was the kind of preparation that
we were trying to do.
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