THE Ashanti Regional Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has organised a two-day workshop for its Public Relations Officers (PROs) to build their capacity to enable them to become proficient in marketing the values of the service to help improve standards.
About 47 PROs attended the workshop, which provided them with the requisite skills to interact with parents and address issues that promoted the interest of their wards.
Topics such as “The role of the PRO in the GES”, “media management and dissemination of information”, “The Ghana National Association of Teachers and GES collaboration to improve education”, “human relations”, “report and proposal writing”, as well as “efficient and effective management of time”, were discussed.
The Ashanti Regional Director of the GES, Mr J. K. Onyinah, expressed concern about the way issues of the GES were addressed, and said ineffective interaction between their Public Relations Directorate and parents, especially at the district level, was giving the wrong signal that the GES was not performing creditably to address challenges facing education.
He said it was time Public Relations Officers acquired the requisite communication skills to enable them to have fruitful interactions with stakeholders of the educational sector and addressed issues of concern.
This, he said, would make the public appreciate the efforts being made to improve education delivery in the country.
He challenged newly appointed PROs to adopt a strategy that would build their communication skills for them to be proficient when interacting with the media in particular and the public in general.
Expressing concern about the manner in which issues of the GES were portrayed by the media, Mr Onyinah said while negative issues that dented the image of the GES were usually hyped, the positive ones were grossed over, creating the impression that the GES was not performing to the satisfaction of the public.
“This always paints a wrong picture on issues that promote education in the country, and as PROs of the GES, you have the duty to correct the wrong perception to make the public appreciate the efforts we have been making to develop education in Ghana” he noted.
He said “let the public hear about our contributions to the development of sports, culture and academic work, that are improving standards of education in the country. You have to manage information in a way that would improve the image of the GES as a noble institution desirous of seeking the interest of the public”.
On the computer placement of students to seek admission at the second cycle institutions and the problems created due to inadequate educational facilities, Mr Onyinah said it was time a national policy on the issue was made to reduce the problems created.
He said while student population kept on increasing each year, facilities remained static, a situation, which he noted, undermined their quest to promote quality education in the country.
In the Ashanti Region in particular, he said the annual increase of student intake in second cycle schools was about 20 per cent “but the expansion of infrastructure is not matching the student intake”.
Mr Onyinah said while the private sector was actively supporting the development of education at both the basic and tertiary levels, not much is being done at the second cycle level in terms of private participation in educational development.
“We do not have the resources to expand education at the second cycle level so we should put the picture before the public for them to appreciate the magnitude of challenges facing us for them to support us to address such challenges”.
The former Ashanti Regional Manager of the Ghana News Agency, Mr Francis Kwarteng, urged the participants to update their communication skills and build their capacity in modern standards of journalism and Public Relations Practice.
This, he said, would enable them to keep abreast with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for them to communicate more proficiently with their various publics.
“You must sustain the momentum and maintain high levels of professionalism to stand the test of time,” he advised, adding , “you should stick to professional ethics, guard against sensationalism, and avoid using your medium to incite social tension and ethnic sentiments”
When dealing with the publics, they should also “be cautious and circumspect, especially with regard to press releases, he stated and said it was important to think through such releases and cut out ambiguities as you seek to throw more light on mattes of public interest”
He advised them to ensure that their facts and figures were right to avoid controversies.
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