Incorporate civic education into educational system - Catholic bishops advocate

The Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference (GCBC) has advocated the mainstreaming of civic education into the country’s educational system at all levels.

The conference stressed that civic education is critical in inculcating positive national values and a sense of citizenship in all citizens. The GCBC further stressed that in an era of globalisation when negative values were infiltrating and adulterating core national values, especially patriotism, it was important to consciously mainstream citizenship education into the educational system, beginning from the basic level to produce people who had the nation at heart.

The Catholic bishops made the call when the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Kathleen Addy, led a team to pay a courtesy call on the group last Tuesday.

Courtesy call

The courtesy call formed part of the NCCE's engagement with key state and non-state institutions, prominent individuals and faith-based organisations in a bid to bring the commission closer to stakeholders.

Ms. Addy's entourage included the Director of Programmes, Dr Imurana Mohammed; the Director of Administration, Dora Hammond, and the Director of Research, Gender and Equality, Dr Henrietta Yemidi.

The two sides discussed issues concerning the mandate of the NCCE, the core activities the commission had been engaged in to promote citizenship, the national Constitution Week celebration and challenges in the discharge of the NCCE's mandate.

Other issues included monetisation of politics, religious intolerance, dissemination of fake news and violent extremist activities, which could be potential threats to peace and security in this year’s election. Also central to the discussions was the NCCE's role in voter education to make sure that citizens made informed decisions in the December 7, 2024, polls.

Citizenship education

The President of the GCBC, Most Rev. Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, stressed that although the NCCE had the core mandate to promote citizenship education in the country, it would be easier to achieve that goal if citizenship education was made part of the school curriculum.

"Citizenship education should begin earlier from the elementary schools to the very top of the educational ladder so that citizens will be conscious of the core values that make us unique as Ghanaians," he said.

Making specific reference to the subject of LGBTQI+, Most Rev. Gyamfi said it was alien to the country’s value system, and well-informed citizens would speak against negative values to prevent them from being propagated.

NCCE strategy

Ms Addy said the NCCE had been engaging the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders in the education sector to mainstream civic education into the school system.

She said although not much had been achieved in terms of the outcomes of those engagements, the commission would sustain the momentum for it to be done.

Ms Addy added that the NCCE was focused on dealing with the two greatest threats to peace and security in the 2024 elections, namely extremist activities in neighbouring countries and religion-based campaigns.

"For the first time in the Fourth Republic, we have a Muslim presidential candidate for one of the leading political parties, and this has brought up the issue of religious intolerance; we are working closely with other stakeholders to deal with it," she said.

Source: https://www.graphic.com.gh/