Anis Haffar assesses flaws in Ghana's educational system

Ghana’s educational system which has undergone several substantive reforms in the past 60 years has also come under major scrutiny over issues concerning students’ performance and other related topics.

While some of these issues are being handled by the government through the Ministry of Education, a renowned Ghanaian educationist has identified what in his expert opinion is one of the biggest flaws in the educational system.

In the words of Anis Haffar, the major weakness that has plagued Ghana’s educational system over the years is the lack of teacher preparation, which has not been given adequate attention as is supposed to.

Teacher preparation which best reflects the training and processes instructors go through before they meet their student, according to him has been underrated.

“I’d say teacher preparation…” he stated while providing an answer to what he thinks is the biggest flaw in Ghana’s educational system, in an exclusive interview with GhanaWeb.

Adding that, “How do you prepare teachers to do a better job than what they do now…you can go to any school and you pick any kid at random and ask that this week what are you going to study in Chemistry or Mathematics. They have to be able to tell you…”

In an attempt to suggest a solution per his expertise in the field of training teachers, he explained that teachers should be able to move at a pace where no student is left out in the learning process while adopting the highest forms of teaching practices in classrooms.

“So now what we need to do…is that, we need the course outline for the whole term, itemizing exactly what is going to be expected on a week to week basis according to the syllabus. And they have to be posted on notice board in every classroom so that student have access to it because some students are sharp learners. If they know what they’re going to do in the course of the week, they can go ahead and prepare themselves sufficiently for it…,” he argued.

Mr Haffar added, “This is how we need to prepare our teachers in the future; that we have to make allowance for every learner. Some are slow but they’re not going to be slow forever. These are the challenges that I think the school of education need to be aware of…”