In 2009, the country witnessed one of the hottest debates on education between the NDC and the NPP as to whether education should be for a three-year period or four years. The debate went on for several months without any conclusion because the debate was on party lines and not one of a national identity. In the run up to the 2012 election, again there was two ideologies proposed by the leading political parties where one proposed “quality by investing in infrastructure first” and the other was “free”. A careful study of the two propositions confirmed by belief that one of these two things were happening: that either none of the two parties had a clear understanding of the problems facing our educational system or they just decided to throw anything to Ghanaians in their quest for political power. I wondered how the NPP was going to sustain their free education policy due to the high cost that was involved especially with the boarding system of our education. I could not also understand the rationale behind the proposal of the NDC to build 200 teacher training colleges when at the time the current schools were not even taking up to the required capacity.
It is always said that education is a key to national development but not all education leads to national development. Even though we have many people going to school, a lot of them do not come out as functional literates and thus instead of being problem solvers, they also become a burden on the society. I do not blame such students but rather blame the system. The system have made it possible for people to use their positions to get unqualified students into certain institutions where they ought not to be but simply because they have the family ties and connections, they make it to the schools whilst those qualified academically sit at home because they have no one to help them. How can your education lead to national development when all what your students are thought to do is to memorise and then write exact the same thing during exams. That is what we call in the Ghanaian parlance “Chew and Pour”. How can Ghana’s educational system lead to national development when we only learn theories without any practicality, the situation which has even rendered all our Technical Institutions uneffective. Since 2010, the west African Examination Councils (WAEC) withholds a substantial number of results due to examination malpractices. The situation becomes worrying every year. This year, WAEC cancelled the results of 132 candidates, 5,833 subjects and withheld the results of about 80 schools as compared to last year where about 9,066 were withheld. The problem is that, the proponents of such acts are the teachers of the various schools. In 2011, we had a situation where a female teacher was beaten by her students because she took an amount of GHC30.00 each from them to provide them with the question papers known as “appor” but these question she gave them were not the ones which were given to the students to answer leading to the action of the students. What will prompt a teacher to inculcate that habit in her students? There is one major answer, the teacher might have gotten her degree through such cheating means. The situation is worrying as this is even becoming prevalent at the basic level. Indeed, we had a situation this year where some BECE candidates confessed paying money to exam officers to be allowed to cheat. We have an educational system where majority do not fit the job market even due to the nature of the system. We complain about high unemployment rate yet we see thousands of job advertisements on the internet, newspapers etc. Definitely, if you have a system that do not train people to become critical thinkers but to only read the works of other to reproduce, then you do not expect prospective employers to hire them since these employers require a higher level of creativity and professional touch.
My fear is that, if the country is going to continue down this lane, then the country is heading into the abyss. Currently there seems to be no control or proper monitoring of our going Senior High Schools giving heads of schools the absolute control to fix any amount of fees for students to pay. What is even annoying is the fact that many poor people are not able to have access to education due to the increasing rate of school fees. For instance, during the last academic year, a lot of parents had to pay an average of GHC 800 to get their wards to school. As if that is not enough, most heads of schools were asking students to buy cement, desks and even blocks. Students are being charged for motivation fees even when teachers hardly go to class and spend most of their time on their private classes. It appears is not shedding its responsibility of motivating teachers, building infrastructure and the provisions of resources solely to parents and thus they just sit on the fence and watch without doing anything.
All these problems have culminated as a result of no clear National direction of the Country’s educational system. The policy on education changes anytime political power changes. There is no National policy but rather party policy which runs our educational system. Since everything in this country is so much politicized, we fail as a country to find the real problems and solutions to the issues which affect our education. In fact I have not heard any of our policy makers raising red flags over the recent high rate of examination malpractices. The worst of it is that, these political leaders who make all arguments in favour of their political parties policy end up not putting their wards in our educational systems.
We need a great revolution and I the media should create the platform for a national debate. Every stakeholder must be brought on board to help find a lasting solution to our educational predicament which is the only way we can secure the future of this great nation of ours. We need to revolutionize our academic curriculum, have a clear national policy and strong monitoring systems at all levels of our education. Education is the only sustainable way Ghana can reach the Promised Land. Long Live Ghana.
Kwabena Danso
Youth Advocate & Executive Director
The Yonso Project
0249157348
