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"Project Citizen" program
introduced to schools
Koforidua, June 24, Ghanadot/GNA -
National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has
introduced a programme for “Project Citizen” in selected
schools to infuse civic values and patriotism in the youth
through extra academic work for the school children.
The project is aimed at training school children to
understand governance, public policy, lobbying, public
speaking, project writing and citizenship as part of the
mandate of the NCCE to imbibe civic responsibility in the
fabric of society.
Mr Emmanuel Quaye-Sowah, Eastern Regional Director for NCCE,
said at the opening of the first project citizen by selected
schools in the region on Tuesday that it would also equip
the youth to participate in national development processes.
The Eastern Regional showcase underway in Koforidua for the
next three days is the first of its kind and a component of
the “Citizen Project.”
The selected schools would present their portfolios on
selected topics hampering progress in their communities and
their solutions using state policies.
The 16 selected senior and junior high schools from the
region would present topics such as child labour, teenage
pregnancies, refusal to vote during elections and national
activities and high illiteracy rate in communities among
other topics.
He said since 1994, the NCCE has advocated for the
re-introduction of civics as an examinable subject into
school curriculum with a strong conviction that “all round
development of the Ghanaian is incomplete without the
infusion of civic values through conscious and consistent
efforts”.
Although this call had not been heeded, Mr Quaye-Sowah said,
the NCCE had not relented in its mandate and mentioned the
introduction of the constitution game and the formation of
civic education clubs in schools as some of the strategic
efforts it had embarked on to redress the broking down of
patriotism on the part of the youth.
He said academic and paper qualifications alone were not
enough to move the agenda of national development without
requisite training, a guarantee of responsible citizens.
Mrs Fanny Kuma, a co-director of the project and director of
literature at NCCE, said the project was operating in 111
schools in five regions on pilot basis to be extended to the
other regions.
She said under the project 40 teachers had been trained from
the schools and regions on how to guide the children in
using state policies to solve problems in their communities.
Mrs Kuma commended the children for the hard work and the
spirit of patriotism they showed by accepting to be part of
the groups.
Mr Kwame Amo-Darko, a past president of the Ghana National
Association of Teachers (GNAT), lauded the NCCE for such a
masterpiece project, which he described as a strategic
academic work that would not only help the children to learn
but to have a feel of what it takes and means to be a
responsible citizen.
He said democracy required that every citizen participated
in the development process and not to follow an action by a
certain category of people.
“It is only when all manner of citizens are carried aboard
without recourse to their age and social standing that we
can consolidate our democracy”.
GNA
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