1.8 million school leavers left on the streets

It is estimated that about 1,792,000 Senior Secondary and Junior Secondary School leavers have been outside the educational system since 1990. What makes the situation worse is that they have no employable skills.

Available data indicates that out of an average of 200,000 JSS students who pass out every year, only about 72,000 gain admission into SSS, while about 10,000 get into technical institutions and vocational schools.

Also, out of about 72,000 SSS students graduating each year, only 25,000 gain access to universities, polytechnics and teacher training colleges, leaving about 47,000 on the streets.

The Principal of the University College of Education, Winneba, Professor Josphus Anamua-Mensah, said these when he addressed the on-going First Quadrennial (48th) National Delegates Conference of GNAT in Accra, on Friday.

He said that there seemed to be a tacit acceptance of the principle that in any learning system, only a few should excel, and because of that, very little support was provided for students falling below standard, resulting in mass failures.

“This is a potential time bomb as we seem to be creating a group of disillusioned citizens for the society with the majority of them remaining unemployed or becoming street children,” he said.

Professor Anamua-Mensah expressed the hope that any review of the educational system in terms of its structure, content, method, management and evaluation should be aimed at waging a relentless war against low standards, through the implementation of what he described as “zero tolerance of educational failure”.

He said, instead of the JSS system, which could not operate the zero tolerance policy, a standard-based education system should be created. The Professor explained that, the standard-based system was not about improving the classroom transaction or bringing inputs into schools but would be concerned with the transformation of the whole ecology of schooling to achieve the desired results.

He said it should involve all the critical elements of the school system to work together to ensure that all pupils achieve defined and challenging standards of performance.

He however noted that, the proposed standard-based education would not be successfully implemented if the schools, districts and regions are not properly organised and managed for results, defined by students’ performance against high standards.

He also said the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) should be made available to all learners from basic to tertiary education in order to enable them make the best use of the ever increasing knowledge in the system.

“The computerisation of all schools should be seen as a priority need in a learning society”, he urged. The Professor said the inclusion of rural schools in the learning society require the implementation of deliberate measures such as the use of mobile computer labs, and mobile libraries and there was the need for serious consideration to be given in that direction.