Cover for Atiwa East District Assembly
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Atiwa East District Assembly

Atiwa East District Assembly

The Atiwa East District Assembly was established in 2018 by Legislative Instrument (LI) 2344 of 2017 as one of the newly created 33 districts in the Eastern Region with Anyinam as the District Capital. The District was carved out of the then Atiwa Distric

LEAP COMMUNITY FOCAL PERSONS (CFPs) ENGAGED ON THE UPCOMING CONDUCT OF LEAP REASSESSMENT EXERCISE posted by :: Prince Obeng DonkorThe Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) program in Ghana managed by the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) is a cash transfer initiative designed to alleviate poverty and improve living standards among the most vulnerable populations. The program's primary objectives are to reduce poverty by increasing and smoothing consumption among extremely poor households, promote access to services and opportunities, such as healthcare and education, and to Improve household consumption and nutrition, particularly among children, the elderly, and people with severe disabilities.On the basis of the official communique from the LEAP Management Secretariat (LMS) to the constitute LEAP Reassessment Team in Metropolitan, Municipal, and District instructing them to engage the LEAP Reassessment Committee and Community Focal Persons (CFPs) on the Reassessment exercise which have tentatively slated to commence on the stipulated date. In compliance with the official communique, the LEAP Reassessment Team of Atiwa East District Assembly engaged the LEAP Community Focal Persons (CFPs) on the date of January 10, 2025, at the Assembly Hall with the purpose of sharing with them the rationale, the objective of LEAP Reassessment, and their roles during the exercise.Some of the highlights shared by the Reassessment Team during the event with the audience were how the program kickstarted at Atiwa East District for the first time in the year 2016 after the establishment of the District, and how beneficiaries were registered onto the program. Some of the Focal Persons began to share their experiences back then, eliciting on how several questionnaires were administered to the beneficiaries and some responses that came out. According to the experiences shared by the Focal Persons, some of the respondents during the exercise to the administered questionnaires were not the exact reflection of their true state and as a result were not eligible to be enrolled unto to program. Major flaws addressed by the Reassessment Team based on the Focal Persons comments during the engagement were incorrect provision of names, misinterpretations of the administered questionnaires, and false provision of information with the conscious eagerness to be enrolled on the program.However, upon the major flaws addressed, the Reassessment Team edged the Focal Persons to be committed, to remember the sacrifices, and reaffirmed the promises they made to the beneficiaries when it comes to the LEAP program implementation.The Community Focal Persons were also abreast with the possible outcomes of the reassessment exercise which is to either remain, graduate, or exit beneficiaries from the program. These possible outcomes solely lie on the responses of the beneficiaries to the various questions that will be put before them by the outsourced third-party data collection firms (in this case, it may be JMK or ESOKO). Regarding this, the Focal Persons must effectively collaborate with the third-party data collection firms, the Reassessment Team, and the Reassessment Committee for the effective conduct of the exercise and to make sure that all qualified beneficiaries are enrolled unto the program. ... See MoreSee Less
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LEAP REASSESSEMENT COMMITTEE ENGAGED ON THE UPCOMING CONDUCT OF LEAP REASSESSMENT EXERCISE posted by:: Prince Obeng DonkorThe Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) program in Ghana managed by the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) is a cash transfer initiative designed to alleviate poverty and improve living standards among the most vulnerable populations. The program's primary objectives are to reduce poverty by increasing and smoothing consumption among extremely poor households, promote access to services and opportunities, such as healthcare and education, and to Improve household consumption and nutrition, particularly among children, the elderly, and people with severe disabilities.The LEAP program which has survived through the test and trials of the conduct of political activities on political arena and successive government since the implementation of the program in the year 2008, demands the need to assess the Impact Evaluate and Monitoring to determine its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement according to the rules and regulations that governs the implementation of the program.On the basis of the official communique from the LEAP Management Secretariat (LMS) to the constitute LEAP Reassessment Team in Metropolitan, Municipal, and District instructing them to engage the LEAP Reassessment Committee and Community Focal Persons (CFPs) on the Reassessment exercise which have tentatively slated to commence on the stipulated date. In response to the official communique in good faith, the LEAP Reassessment Team of Atiwa East District Assembly engaged the Reassessment Committee on the date of January 9, 2025, at the Assembly Hall with the purpose of sharing with them the rationale, the objective of LEAP Reassessment, and their roles during the exercise.Before the engagement with the Reassessment Committee, the Reassessment Team met to abreast themselves first on the LEAP Reassessment Strategic Implementation. Some of the highlights shared by the Reassessment Team during the event with the audience were a summary of the origin of the LEAP Program since the year 2008, and how the program kickstarted at Atiwa East District for the first time in the year 2016 after the came about of the District.According to the popular quote from Nelson Mandela which states that “Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the action of human being”, the Team vividly expatiated the reasons and the importance of the program to the beneficiaries as a reminder, and why the committee should whole-heartly commit themselves to the Reassessment exercise.The LEAP committee was abreast with the amount of cash grants release to the beneficiaries from the year 2008 to 2024 according to the Number of Eligible member(s) in the household, the 200% increment of the cash grants since June 2023 to the current date on the basis of the influence of the global market and the depreciation value of the country’s local currency.The LEAP households were supposed to be reassessed every four (4) years; however, no reassessment has been conducted since the commencement of the program in the year 2008 due to certain constraints, especially appropriate allocation of funding for the reassessment. The Reassessment Team to the committee in clarity stated the objectives of the Reassessment exercise which is to seek identify households that will no longer be eligible for program and link them to the other complementary services and support, and to update the LEAP beneficiaries register in other to give more room for qualified eligible beneficiaries to be also enrolled into the program for which is an indication of the enhancement of transparency, consistency and fairness.The committee was also abreast of the possible outcomes of the reassessment exercise which is to either remain, graduate, or exit as beneficiaries from the program. These possible outcomes solely lie on the responses of the beneficiaries to the various questions that will be put before them by the outsourced third-party data collection firms (in this case, it may be JMK or ESOKO). Regarding this, the committee must effectively collaborate with the third-party data collection firms, the Reassessment Team, and the Community Focal Persons for the effective conduct of the exercise. ... See MoreSee Less
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NACCA ENGAGES INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT ON THE NEW CURRICULUM & ASSESSMENT Posted By: Prince Obeng DonkorThe National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) mandated by the Educational Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) to develop national curriculum and assessment standards for the Senior High School, Senior High Technical Schools and Science, Technology, Environment and Mathematics (STEM) schools engaged officers from the Information Services Department across the length and breadth of the country via workshop conducted for three days.The three days’ workshop conducted for the Southern Sector, Middle sector and Northern sector seeks to address the strategic ways of dissemination effectively on the approved newly curriculum thoroughly drafted by NaCCA and it allies from the Educational Sector from all angles including other collaborators such as the Parliamentary Selected Committee of Education, the National Unions for Ghana Student (NUGS), Civil Society Organization (CSOs) in Education, Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Association of Ghana Industry (AGI), and Subjected Associations using the Education Strategic Plan (ESP, 2018-2030) which served as a guide in the writeup of the newly curriculum.Atiwa East District Assembly was privileged to be part of the Southern belt NaCCA workshop which was conducted at Airport View Hotel in Accra represented by the Assistant Information Officer / Right to Information officer in the person of Prince Obeng Donkor for the District Information Officer in the person of Frederick Kofi Asempa. According to the Director for Corporate Affairs for NaCCA in the person of Rebecca Abu Gariba, in her presentation to the house strongly believe that the New Curriculum aims to specifically target learners in the various schools and equip them with the 21st century skills, competencies, character qualities and shared Ghanaian values. The new curriculum which is of the first kind ever drafted to suit the setting of Ghanaians values for pre-tertiary schools and about to implemented is now here to address the weakness of the old pre-tertiary school syllabus used by teachers for student learning.She went ahead to exploit the weakness of the old syllabus of which one of it was the extreme poor standardization of the service delivery of the true knowledge required by the students to practically utilize in locally and globally. For this is as a result of the inconsistency on the side of most teachers not truly understanding what the content of the syllabus is selling out and not to talk of teaching it to the students or teaching it without the full understanding just to cover up for the losses. For the old syllabus lacks the how and when the teacher is supposed to do to aid the student in leaning, and all burden falls on the shoulders of the teachers to make it possible. The other setbacks highlighted by Miss Rebecca Abu on the weakness of the old syllable is the old syllabus not student centered but teacher centered to the extent that, students are not involved in the knowledge-creation process. Teachers need to be the knowledge-creator in addition to the facilitation. To cement what was said by Miss Rebecca to the house, the old syllabus does not address the emotional and social challenges and its mitigation to manage, build a healthy relationship and make a responsive decision.However, on the basis of the conducted research outcomes from NaCCA on the old syllabus and several recommendations made from several educational bodies across the country to NaCCA decided to draft a comprehensive and thoroughly new curriculum framework for pre-tertiary schools across Ghana in collaboration with GES, and other stakeholders especially, Transforming Teaching Education Learning (T-TEL) a non-for-profit Ghanaian organization that provides high quality technical advice, project management, research and implementation support services, using local talent and expertise to enable Ghana’s education system to reach greater heights.According to Miss Rebecca, the writeup of the newly pre-tertiary school curriculum was collectively guided by the Education Strategic Plan (ESP, 2018-2030) which comprises of the development of the National Pre-Tertiary Education Curriculum Framework and the National Pre-Tertiary Leaning Assessment Framework. The strategic oversight and guidance to the curriculum development process were the Ministry of Education Agencies, the Universities, Teacher Union, Employers and other key stakeholders formed from the year 2022. The documents had undergone a thoroughly trailing and learning approaches in 33 schools nationwide in the year 2023/2024 academic year at category A, B and C pre-tertiary schools to ensure the fitness of it and its true purpose as intended. Before the new curriculum acceptance and approval, it had gone for review by the international and national experts including various durbars and townhall meetings as a necessary systematic step to ensure it authenticity, and the meeting of the global quality standards.The new curriculum intended to be rollout in November 2024 starting with the new entrance students in all the various senior high schools, senior high technical schools, and STEM schools is here to target all students and solicit their fundamental level of skills in creativity, arithmetic, scientific, information and communication, digitalization, civic, and global citizenship. The other service delivery of the curriculum is the competencies in critical thinking and problem-solving, innovation and creativity, collaboration and communication. In addition to what is stated above is the enforcement of Ghanaian character qualities which includes integrity, self-discipline, self-directed learning, self-confidence, adaptability and resourcefulness, leadership and responsible citizenship.The Curriculum expert Prof. Jonathan Fletcher added more flesh to Miss Rebecca’s presentation by making emphasis on the philosophy vision of each subject which set out why the subject is being taught and how it will contribute to national development. It also aims to achieve every learner full potential under the guidance and supervision of the teachers, and the guardian and council members, and to provide the right environment and other resources for learning. According to Prof Fletcher, the new curriculum has been capacitated to identify, and expose the activist, reflectors, theorist, and the pragmatic learner’s behavior and their responds to the effect of the curriculum. With this statement made by the Professor, teachers can easily identify and exploit the learner’s weakness and address them separately or depending on the situation at hand fall upon the services of the guidance and council members to mitigate the issue and put the learner on track. The new curriculum does not leave the people with disabilities (PWDs) unattended the curriculum export said. PWDs can now effectively adapt the teaching and learning materials into accessible format through technology and other measures to meet the needs of the learners. The incorporation of the new strategic and measures which are the differentiation and the adaptive pedagogies, ensures the equitable access to resources and opportunities for all learners. It also challenges the traditional gender, cultural, or stereotypes and encouraging all learners to achieve their true potential, and finally, making provision for the needs of gifted talented learners in their respective schools.According to one of Professor Fletchers research conducted on Africans students in-conjunction with the ideology of the old syllabus reveals the exclusion of the learners social and emotional affairs, but however, the new curriculum does addresses the affairs of both social and emotional to help learners to develop and acquire skills, attitudes and knowledge essential for understanding and managing their emotional, and to build healthy relationship and making responsible decision. The very new unique key features the new curriculum unveils for the leaners in the STEM, SHS, and SHTS schools is the flexibility in subject selection. Learners are privileged to choose subjects between a minimum total of 7 (comprises of 4 core and 3 elective) and maximum of 9 (comprises of 4 core and 5 electives). Some of these subjects can be selected for year one instead of the full three years. BECE will continue to be the exit examination for Junior High School (JHS) leavers. JHS graduate entering the Senior High School will choose general “learning areas” such as the General Arts, Science, Languages, STEM, Applied Technology, Home Economics, Business Studies, Arts. Once leaners are placed in school using the School Placement System (SPS), learners will have much more freedom than is currently the case to combine different subjects around their chosen learning area. This will provide leaners with flexibility options to pursue different career pathway at the tertiary level.In addition to Prof. Fletcher address, Professor Yayra Dzakadzie Director General for NaCCA also made emphasis on the subject combination enrolled by the new curriculum and pin-pointed out the required four (4) core subjects which are Social Studies, English language, Mathematics, Genera Science but Physical Education and Health (PEH) core depends on their choice of elective subjects. For Robotics and Coding, is mandatory for all year two 2 learners. The choice of the elective subjects in addition to the core subjects by learners grants them permission to divert to other career pathway at the tertiary level incorporating flexibility to the new curriculum. The surprise integration of intervention subjects which are the interventional English and Mathematics curricula have been deployed to assist learners who required additional support literacy and numeracy as an alternative and efficient way of mitigating the negative effect of the old syllabus. Schools would conduct an initial assessment to identify newly admitted learners’ weakness for appropriate support using the new curriculum. Professor Eric Anane another NaCCA expert in Assessment also chipped-in into the conversation highlighting the conduct of the new curriculum assessment. The Expert said, the new curriculum assessment will be in two levels which are the formative assessment and the summative assessment. The Formative Assessment will comprise of the portfolio, performance and project(s) work, and end-of-term examinations accounting for 30% of the overall summative assessment. For the Summative Assessment will comprise of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) via the WASSCE accounting for 70% of the overall summative assessment. The questions posed by WAEC will test critical thinking, communication and problem-solving as well as the knowledge, understanding and factual recall. However, the curriculum will reveal the true far greater transparency and quality assurance of the 30% marks allocation to the overall summative assessment which is school-based. This will be achieved via the introduction of school-based transcript, setting out all marks which learners achieve from SHS 1 to SHS 3. The transcript will be presented to universities alongside the WASSE certificate for tertiary admissions.Miss Mabel Viviey from NaCCA open the house to the new curriculums’ teaching and learning resources which was under the guidance of the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service, and WAEC. She said, learning materials for the effective implementation of the new curriculum have been completed and approved by NaCCA for Year One for all 37 subjects and available on the zero-based Microsite, T-TEL official website. Teachers and learners can access the microsite free of charge without using their internet data. In addition to these learning materials, a Professional Learning Community (PLC) Handbooks, Subject-Specific teacher manuals, the Departmental Professional Learning Community Handbook, and a Teacher Assessment Guide and toolkits are being made available to teachers in all the 705 SHSs and SHTSs since June 2023 for effective implementation of the program.The PLC handbooks are designed to support teachers in organizing weekly sessions for learners, Subject-Specific Teachers Manuals spells out the content, pedagogies and assessment information needed by teachers to plan and deliver effectively each week, and the Departmental professional Community (DPLCs) allows teachers within the same department meet and to discuss their pedagogical experiences and plan lesson for the next semester. To enhance teaching, weekly Learning Plans will now incorporate Learner Materials and Transcript Assessment Guidance, alongside Teacher Manuals, which ensure teachers utilize all resources available. The benefit of the incorporation he added, was to put teachers on-track during the implementation to the targeted focus of the new curriculum which are the 21st century skills and competencies, gender equity and social inclusion (GESI), social and emotional learning (SEL), and the shared Ghanaian values. ... See MoreSee Less
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AEDA OUTDOOORS THE INTER-PARTY DIALOGUE COMMITTEE FOR 2024posted by : Prince Obeng DonkorThe upcoming December 7th general election 2024 in Ghana is one of the intricate and delicate election to be conducted, having the capability to change the face of the country unexpectedly, and to leave traces of memorable times ever to be recorded in the history books of Ghana.In the political arena, Atiwa East constituency is one to the political hot-zone which always receives a massive political impact as a result of political heads battling to grab power every December 7th general election in every 4 years as the 1992 constitution of Ghana demands. For this reason, raises the need to conduct the third edition of the District Inter-party Dialogue Committee meeting at the District Assembly complex on the date of September 5th, 2024The event witnessed the presence of Mr. Shakil Mahamood Kpedau the District Coordinating Director, DSP Raymond Ibrahim Iddrisu the District Police Commander, Mr. Savior Ametepe the District Director for NCCE, Osaaberima Okogyeibusua Baning Duodu the chief of Anyinam, the district director for CHRAJ Mr. Joseph Agbeko, the district director for Electoral Commission, the district chief Imam, representative from the district local chairman for council of churches, a representative of other interest groups,, a representative from the assembly, all political representatives, all district security heads, representative for PWD’s, representative from the information service department, and the media. The NCCE district director Mr. Savior Ametepe, gave his profound gratitude to the committee members for making time to participate to the meeting. He outlines the reasons for the conduct of the meeting and also explain the purpose of the invitation, which is aim at building consensus, to promote transparency, resolution of potential political conflicts, fostering trust among stakeholders, enhancement of accountability, and supporting the value of democratic governance which is enshrined in section 24 of the Local Governance Act 2016 (Act 936).In the address to members of the committee, the DCD postulated that he had absolute confident in the capacity of the chairman of the committee in the person of Osaaberima Okogyeibusua Baning Duodu the chief of Anyinam. He intimated that, the chairman and members of the committee have the responsibility to ensure that, there is no chaos before, during, and after the December 7th general election. He was confident that, the Atiwa East District will waive the white flag of victory and maintain the harmonious peace already existing in the district.The district director for NCCE reported on the research finding that was conducted by his outfit on previous general elections conducted in the past years, and the outcome indicates that the outcome indicates that, the true nature of general elections has been characterized by what is term as “vote buying”. vote buying has become part and parcel of us even as of now. With this reason there is a need to assess the negative impact on Ghana’s general election and it campaigns. With respect to political campaigns, a significant amount of money is being paid to citizens including delegates as a way of encouraging casting of votes. For this very act from political leaders undermines the citizen civil right law when it comes to voting. In addition to this statement, political party leaders he said, adheres to the demand of money from the citizen before casting their vote during primaries which is an indication of hinderance of citizen not exercising their civil rights in the true manner the civil right law specifies, and complete violation of the section 35 of the Public Election Regulation Act 2016 (C.I 94). On this note, trust in political leaders is eroded to the extreme. Citizens no longer focuse on the proposed policies from political party leaders during election campaigns in fostering the country’s development and it future.One of the proposed wayforward to the house in combatting vote buying is legal reforms and its enforcement. With respect to the enforcement of law, he said, the country has about 30 laws solely to combat against corruption in Ghana but still corruption is rampant. The other proposed wayforward is the fostering of assets disclosure and funding of campaigns to the Electoral Commission as the section 23 of the Public Election Regulation Act 2016 (C.I 95), and section 21 of the Political Parties Law, 2000 (Act 574) specifies. The other propose wayforward highlighted by the director is the fostering of civil education as the NCCE Act 1993 (Act 452) clearly specifies, and detection and avoidance of deliberate misinformation and disinformation on the internet and other channel of communication, for this is the heartbeat of distortion of government policies in a democratic governance.Several proof of evidence in pictures as screenshots from the several media official platforms to illustrate misinformation and disinformation were provided to the committee during presentation to affirm the understanding. The house also heard the presentation from the district director for Electoral commission hammering on election violence. Some of the key issues noted as the causes of electoral violence were removal and defacing of political posters, unpleasant and unacceptable words from the media and political party leaders, removal of electoral materials, and intimidation, chieftaincy disputes, high poverty rate, distrust of electoral bodies and security services.With refence to the presentation from the district director for electoral commission, the district police commander, however cemented the understanding attained with the Public Order Act 491 enacted in 1994. Some of the punch lines made to the hearing of the committee members was the notification of special event involving large masses to the Ghana Police Service. He said, special event must be put into writing and submitted to the Ghana police service with appended signatures to the police officer not bearing at least rank of an ASP within the stipulated time of 5 days before commencement of event. Place and time of the special event, the proposed route(s), reason(s) of conduct, and signature(s) appendment are the core parameters needed in the writeup. The District Police Commander to the hearing of the committee made it clear that, the police have every right to conduct visibility assessment before, and during the special event to determine whether the special event has ability to create or arouse the distortion of public order safety. If the outcome of the assessment poses threat in any way to the citizens or any political party activities, the police can change the date and time or to an extent propose alternative route(s) if necessary. If consensus is not attained, the Public Order Act, 1994 (Act 491) law mandates the Ghana Police Service to inform the district court judge to either restrain or terminate the special event or take any similar legal action(s).In addition, he said the Police will be vigilant and conduct due diligence in maintaining the peace and order within the vicinity to the extent of barricading pedestrian and other roads if necessary.The very last words to the committee were advice and opinion to the December 7th general election. He said, the stakes for the general election 2024 is very high and is of the first-time base on the assessment made by the Ghana Police Service and the National Security Service. He edged the house to do their very humanly possible best to maintain the already peace and order existing in Ghana and Atiwa East district. Within the ECOWAS level and to the world opinion, Ghana is one of the African countries used as a reference to illustrate peace and order, and the Ghana Police Service and the National Security Service and all other security services pledges to maintain the peace and order before, during, and after the December 7th general election 2024. ... See MoreSee Less
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