‘State dominance in education has compromised standards’

Reverend Dr Cyril Fayose, President of the EP University College Saturday observed that the dominance of the state in the delivery of education in the past several years had progressively compromised scholarship and excellence.

He said this situation was in contrast with the times when the mainly mission schools, made Ghana the pride of Africa in terms of education.

Rev Dr Fayose was delivering a paper, Development of Education in Ghana, at a durbar to mark the 10th year of Sonrise Christian Senior High School (SHS), a private school in Ho, under the auspices of the Church of Christ, supported by the sister churches in the US.

The anniversary was on the theme “10 years of Quality Private Education-The Achievements, Challenges and Prospects”

The EP University College President said the phenomenal failure of the state’s strive to provide education to standard has resulted in a resurgence of private schools, including mission schools.

Rev Dr Fayose who said his views were musings on the subject to fuel debate, mentioned poor conditions of service and supervision as some of the problems, associated with public sector schools.

He said strong points of the private system were appropriate supervision, good teacher output, where teachers hardly missed classes and discipline, among others.

Rev Dr Fayose expressed regret that over the years, government policies to remedy the situation had been erratic, incoherent and inconsistent, sometimes ostensibly tinkered by political sectionalism.

He spoke about the “political football” of the Senior High School duration, moving from three to four years and back to three and the re-naming of schools from secondary to high schools without any “value addition”.

“Whether it is secondary or high, the value is still the same,” Rev Dr Fayose stated.

On the free secondary school education, he said, “if it is truly free” then it must be for all including those in the private schools.

He said time was up for government to show some responsibility and leadership in addressing some of the problems faced by private schools as well.

Rev Dr Fayose was thrilled by the progress of the Sonrise to become one of the well resourced and well performing schools in the Region.

Mr Joseph Dzamesi, Founder and Administrator of the School said Sonrise SHS’s 60 per cent tertiary school enrolment rate against the average national rate of 22 per cent underlined its good rating.

“You can agree with me that Sonrise Christian High School over the years had done far better than the average secondary school in qualifying students to tertiary schools, despite the fact that we do not admit students that one would describe as excellent,” he stated.

Mr Dzamesi said another plus for Sonrise was that teachers there hardly missed classes resulting in 85 per cent of the syllabuses being completed by the end of the second year.

He again asked government to review the policy that virtually allowed the computer placement system to place all candidates down to aggregate 45, warning that with no students to enroll, private schools would have to close.

Mr Francis Ganyaglo, Deputy Volta Regional Minister, asked the school located in the vicinity of the fledgling Ho Airport, to take advantage of the positive demographic swings that facility would bring around there.

The Sonrise Christian School started on October 3, 2005 with 132 students, 20 staff with three programmes, General Science, General Arts and Business (Accounting Option) but now has over 300 students.

Mr Rockson Dogbegah, an entrepreneur, who presided over the durbar, said there was the urgent need for educators to resolve the issue of many schools turning out people who only passed exams but could not apply knowledge.

Prizes were presented to pioneering staff and star performers at the 20 14 WASSCE and a 500,000 US dollar fund launched at the durbar, attended by supporting partners from the US or their representatives and past students among others.