Ghanaian schools are holding areas not educational institutions – Diplomatic expert

International Diplomatic Consultant, Farouk Al Wahab has lamented the nature of our educational system, stating that we focus on how to read and write rather than training students to acquire proficiency and skills.

According to him, the system only makes us attend the schools, not to get education.

He raised these concerns of our education system in an interview with Kwame Afrifa Mensah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show.

“The kind of education we have prevents us from developing. We create schools and ask our people to go to school. We do not educate our people. The schools have become a holding area where you learn to read and write but education is to acquire proficiency and skills. We attend schools but were not educated. We just learn alphabets and learn to write out names”, he said.

Comparing Ghana’s educational system to the western countries, he noted “someone’s highest schooling in the western country is the diploma in engineering, not a degree. Yet, this person is very skilled that when he comes to this country, he teaches those with masters in engineering.

With their kind of education, they are able to control Ghana’s scholarly people in engineering on the field because these people do not have the technical know-how and the abilities”.

He encouraged that when government proceeds on projects such as roads, hospitals, among others and calls on the international Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) companies, it must take advantage of them as knowledge partners to train students in our universities on the practicality of the theories they learn in school.

Many people who have assessed Ghana’s educational system have come to a conclusion that there is overemphasis on theory rather than practicals.

Some have thus called on educational reforms including the review of the schools’ curriculum to ensure that there is a balance between the theoretical lessons and the practical lessons.