Johnson Asiedu Nketiah backs church role in mission school management

Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has supported calls for religious bodies to have a greater role in managing mission schools in Ghana. Speaking at the launch of a new College of Education project for the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in Sekyedumase, Nketiah argued that increased involvement from churches could encourage more investment in the national education sector.

Nketiah addressed the ongoing debate regarding the management of mission schools, where the state provides funding for teachers and infrastructure while religious bodies traditionally oversee discipline and religious ethos. He contested the idea that state funding should strip founding religious organizations of their right to teach their faith, noting that parents of students in these institutions are also taxpayers.

He emphasized that the primary motivation for religious groups to invest in education is to raise children within the core beliefs and discipline of their faith. Nketiah noted that many of the country’s top-performing schools are mission-founded, suggesting that their management models should be encouraged rather than diluted.