Member of Parliament for Kwesimintsim, Dr. Prince Hamid Armah, is advocating for legislation that would empower the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) of Ghana to sanction erring publishers.
According to him, giving NaCCA more teeth to bite will halt the perennial scandals where publishers are condemned for bringing out unwholesome contents.
He stated that together with colleagues on the Education Committee, he will pursue the agenda to give the institution punitive powers on publishers.
Dr. Armah made the call during an interview in Parliament in response to the ongoing fracas over two publications by Badu Nkansah whose contents denigrate some ethnic groups from the Volta Region.
He described as unfortunate the political twist being giving to publication and the insinuation there is a deliberate attempt to institute tribal bigotry in the country.
He noted that as a country Ghana has ethnic groups with diverse cultural backgrounds who have lived together in peace and tranquillity for so long and have indeed inter-married.
He said, “So any attempt by a group of persons to publish materials that seek to undermine or violate the cultural sensibility of our people should be condemned in no uncertain terms.”
“I, therefore, join hands with others who have condemned this material and I add that it should not be tolerated.”
Dr. Armah noted the NaCCA, by law, deals with publications of books and indicated that the institution is mandated to approve these materials and instruction resources including textbooks and e-books for schools.
The institution, he said, has a guideline for publishers to submit materials they intend to publish for review but stressed it cannot stop publishers from publishing and selling books.
According to him, NaCCA rigorously and meticulously assesses submitted materials and then makes recommendations to the Ministry of Education and stressed that the controversial books may not have gone through the processes.
He indicated that revision of the books before publication is very important especially when these are materials intended for children and therefore the content must meet certain benchmarks.
He, however, argued that the job of NaCCA is more of advisory because it has no power to sanction or surcharge publishers who commit publication offences.
“NaCCA does not have the power to enforce its recommendations and cannot also go round arresting publishers for publications that do not meet the standard,” he added.
The MP asserted that the publishers are very powerful and could bully NaCCA, especially where the mandate of the institution does not go beyond advisory and therefore powerless to enforce the law in case of regulatory violations.
He cited the McMillan saga as an example when the publishers took on the Kufuor government for the printing of some textbooks for Ghanaian schools.
The solution, he said, is for Parliament to pass a Legislative Instrument (L.I.) to enhance the capacity and authority of NaCCA to be able to enforce the laws and sanction publishers for violation in terms of published materials.
Contributing to a statement by Mr Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, MP for Akatsi North,Hon Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the Deputy Majority Leader, said Parliament must give more powers to NaCCA to enable it to enforce its regulation.
He said the move would help forestall the incidence of controversial publications like the anti-Ewe textbook, which had triggered nationwide outrage.
He said the NaCCA had no power to confiscate products it had not approved unlike the Food and Drugs Authority.
“So, Mr Speaker, after all the talk, if we want to stop some of these things, we would do so in giving NaCCA the power. Because Mr Speaker, in all of the criticism, the question is; what was the regulator doing?” he asked.
In a statement on the floor of Parliament, Mr Nortsu-Kotoe, the Ranking Member on the Educational Committee, described the publication as “part of a grand scheme by certain individuals to deliberately denigrate, vilify, indoctrinate and poison the minds of people against the Ewe ethnic group.”
“It is important to state unequivocally that as the Volta Regional Caucus, we find the contents of these books most distasteful, backward, unacceptable and most reprehensible,” Mr Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, MP for Akatsi North, said.
He called on the Ministry of Education to immediately withdraw the books from the schools and bookshops and called for necessary sanctions to serve as a deterrent to others
Source: mypublisher24.com
