Some of our nurses and teachers are half-baked professionals -

Over the years trained teachers and nurses, have acquired training and come out of the various training schools all over the country.

These training processes take a maximum of three years to come out as a trained teacher or nurse.

After this, these nurses and trained teachers, are posted by government into various schools and hospitals.

This has increased enrolment, because of the interest of most Senior High School (SHS) graduates, who do not even have the passion or interest in these two fields of profession.

However, since the process training and securing a good job is easy, compared to their colleagues who opt for the university which requires four years and seeking for a job is difficult to come by, most of them tend to rush into the various colleges of education and nursing training institutions for ready jobs.

Another factor, which influences these high school graduates into these training schools is that, the grades required to enter into these schools are flexible, than the ones requested by the universities.

Whereas at the university level, one will have to sit again to better his or her grades before being admitted, these colleges often times accept students with lesser grades for training.

In an interview with a student from the Accra College of Education, about the requirements to get admission, one student said, ‘‘before one can gain admission into the school, one must have at least a pass grade from grade A1 to D7’’.

He said ‘‘after our two years of studies in the school, we are sent out to basic schools for our out program for a period of one year and that adds up to the two years of study making it three years of learning. From there, we come back to school to write our final papers and then graduate.

After our graduation, we are given sponsorship letters to be signed by the District Officer and then our job is secured”. Efforts to speak to the Principal of the Accra College of Education, proved futile.

On the other hand, the trained nurses who go through this same process, some of them allegedly fail their papers during their period of learning in their various training schools but they still get posted after their learning period for their out programme and permanent work after the out programme.

The future leaders who are yet to know right from wrong are entrusted into the hands of such teachers and human lives are also left in the hands of such nurses. This can be blamed on poor educational structure in the teacher and nursing training institutes.

At the university, graduates are awarded per their academic performance and excellence in their course of study at the end of their four year period that is the 1st class award, 2nd Class and the 3rd Class honours.

These university graduates thrive and are ready for the job market but unfortunately, they rather have no readily available jobs for them.

In an interview with a 2014 graduate of the University of Ghana, Legon John Ansah Badu, he said ‘‘I have been home for three years now and I graduated with a 2nd Class Upper degree but I have made relentless effort to get a job form various companies but all has been to no avail.’’.

He also added that, “Compared to training colleges, most of us come out of the universities and acquiring job becomes very difficult, however we spend four years in the tertiary institutions without allowances or been fed by the universities and yet, we come out without jobs. We been cheated by both government and the trained teachers and nurses’’.

When asked about his views on how things can be reformed he said, ‘‘I think that it will be best if the feeding benefit given to the trainees is stopped, because those in the universities pursuing Diploma course, are not being fed or giving allowances neither are they having a secured job after their course of study, since they are also pursuing a Diploma certificate in their training schools.

So I think its best their allowances have been cancelled as at the moment”.