Educational reform should address loopholes in the system

Kumasi, May 28, GNA - The Rev Isaac Kankam-Boadu, the Founder and Leader of the Grace Community Church Kumasi, said on Thursday that debate on the duration of country's Senior High School (SHS) system would be cosmetic if it failed to address the gaping loopholes in the system.

He said the system was fraught with inconsistencies such as the delay in the issuance of certificates after the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination and the long stay of graduating students at home before gaining admission into tertiary institutions especially the universities.

Addressing the media in Kumasi on Thursday Rev Kankam-Boadu described the present situation where a number of graduating senior high school students are made to stay in the house for over a year before gaining admissions into the tertiary institutions as shameful and backward in the 21st century.

He said though he appreciated the reasons for the creation of the situation for students having to wait for one year, which was a fall out of the introduction of the JSS system in 1987, he was surprised that the previous government did nothing to rectify it. Rev Kankam-Boadu said the question of duration of the system should be critically looked at since the old SHS system was in real terms four years in that students spent three years doing academic work and did one year doing absolutely nothing before having the chance to be enrolled in the universities for instance.

Rev Kankam-Boadu, a former bi-lingual tutor in Sierra-Leone, Nigeria and Ghana, said it behoved the Ghana Education Service (GES) and stakeholders to fashion out a clear cut policy that would help make up for the one year SHS students spent at home doing virtually nothing. He said the reform by the NPP government which had just begun indicated that there would not be any examinations in 2010 since the students would then be in SHS three. This would mean there would be no admission for the 2011/12 academic year.

He suggested the institution of pre-university colleges to engage these students who would otherwise be idling around into brisk learning for that one year, after which they would be made to write an examination qualifying them for level 200 in the mainstream university. "Those who are not able to make it to university should be made to write an examination that would qualify them for other alternative institutions such as the Polytechnics."

The Rev Minister said he was of the conviction that when this is done it would help to create enough room for more students to be admitted to level 100 at the universities. 28 May 09