The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) says it feels insulted over some comments made by the Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh suggesting that faith-based organizations do not verify facts before making public comments on government policies.

The Education Minister, while addressing the media on Tuesday on the controversial Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) indicated that faith-based organizations form part of the decision-making body which the educational curriculum conforms with the cultural norms of the society and therefore should verify facts of official government policies before making public pronouncements on such, following public uproar on the integration of the CSE into the education curriculum.

“There are faith-based organizations on both the Ghana Education Service and the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA) governing councils to help ensure that our curriculum is at line with our values as a nation, we appeal to the general public and all faith-based organizations to exercise restraint and verify facts of official government policies before making public pronouncements, the nation should be rest assured that the government and the Ministry would not compromise our societal values in the delivery of quality education” he told the media in Accra yesterday.

Reaction to the comments made by Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, General Secretary of the GPCC, Rev Emmanuel Teimah Barrigah, said in an interview with Accra based Starr FM that the clergy feels insulted by the pronouncements of the sector Minister.

“I want to say that sometimes our ministers of state must be very candid with us, they must give us a modicum of respect. To suggest that religious leaders or faith-based organizations have not read any document and they are coming out to make uninformed statements, for me it’s an insult.

The Education Minister in the meeting with the press indicated categorically that the government had not approved the CSE document for use by teachers in basic schools.

“The Ministry would like to state categorically that the curriculum framework for KG-P6 that has been approved by Cabinet from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment [NaCCA] for use in the development of school curricula and published on NaCCA website does not include anything on Comprehensive Sexuality Education,”  he noted

Despite this position of the Ministry, Mr. Barrigah, says the clergy is confused about what exactly the government wants to do with the country’s education system.

“To borrow the words of my colleague General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, the waters are not clear, because what he said yesterday totally contradicts what he said earlier on in the year so maybe he needs to come out again to tell us exactly which of the two statements stands as at now, well of course, maybe we could assume that what he said yesterday is what may be the current situation but he has to come out and make it clear to us”

The GPCC, however, is not the only body who have expressed confusion on the Comprehensive Sexuality Education as the Christian Council have also expressed a similar position.

“The question is what is in the curriculum that they are implementing now, what we are asking for is broad stakeholder consultation. You can’t implement some of these things without talking to the religious bodies without talking to parents, talking to civil society organizations and so on so this is our position, that whatever they want to implement they should come clean and let the public be aware of it” General Secretary of the Christian Council, Rev. Dr. Cyril Fayose stated.

ABCNews