Two thirds of JHS graduates can’t read and write – Prof Adei

A former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) Professor Stephen Adei has bemoaned the growing decline of academic performance of Junior High School (JHS) graduates in the country.

He admittedly stated that enrollments figures are encouraging; he is saddened that the quality of products from most of JHSs is disappointing adding that most of them have a challenge of being able to read and write.

“Two-thirds of those who come out of the JHS system in the public sector are functionally illiterate and in that regard has rendered Ghana to have the worst basic educational systems in the world; the whole world, we are at the bottom,” he said.

The Economic and Leadership Expert who was addressing participants at the first International conference on Management, Entrepreneurship and Business Education organized by the All Nations University College Business School in Koforidua according to a report from Bryt Fm’s David Sackey asserted that the country has failed to harmonize its basic educational system.

He is of the view that Ghana’s JHS and Senior High School (SHS) systems were introduced without adequate planning to make graduates become creative and innovative and called for urgent attention to ameliorate the situation.

“The JHS, for instance, was not supposed to be run on terminal basis but to be a stage where all the children would go to grammar school and the worst would go to a trade school for at least two years, but unfortunately it is being run on a term basis,” he reiterated.

According to him, the educational system of the country is not in any way directly linked to the needs of the important sectors of the economy since pupils and students are not oriented to make a living in such areas.