Former Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Most Reverend Emmanuel K. Asante
The Former Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church and Former Peace Council Chairman, Most Reverend Emmanuel K. Asante has expressed concern over Ghana's education where he disclosed that the drive for its grammar-based achievement alone was worrying.
He said too much emphasis on grammar-based education with little input for technical, vocational education does not lead to the industrial breakthrough which is a sine qua non to development.
According to him, nobody can dispute the importance of grammar-based education as a major channel of social mobility since, in the context of industrialization, grammar-based education facilitates upward social mobility through success in business or industry.
"Industrialization creates job vacancies, which are filled by those with the highest educational attainment. Thus, grammar-based education exists to facilitate the sustainability of business and industry by providing the human resource needed for their growth". He revealed.
He said grammar-based education, however, does not in itself facilitate industrialization, adding that the type of education, which facilitates rapid industrialization, is the technical vocational training type.
"We have already noted that Geoffrey Hurd and others observed in their study that "the early stages of industrialization in England owed little to formal education, for it was these very changes which created the major need for mass education."
Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel Asante said this during the 46th Graduation of the Christian Service University College in Kumasi over the weekend.
About 245 students in different bachelor programmes graduated on the day in addition to 9 graduands who obtained a Certificate in Biblical Studies.
Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel K. Asante who delivered a speech as the guest speaker spoke under the theme, "Maintaining Standards In Private Tertiary Institutions in Ghana".
In the professor's address, he further observed that a close look at the African economic industrial situation and for that matter the situation in Ghana, as has been observed by Hurd and others, clearly indicates that perhaps, the major problem in respect of industrial and economic growth is not lack of investment in education, even though one must concede that our investment in education could be better.
Perhaps what is lacking is "capital for investment in power projects, factories, the modernization or mechanization of Agriculture and so on."
He said our scarce monetary resource, as a developing nation, means that money spent on the development of grammar-based education is money denied to the directly productive sectors of the economy.
He further explained that formal education emerged to produce the human resource and the expertise to further the process of industrial development and to facilitate the socio-political and economic changes that took place.
In view of this, he added, it has been argued that developing countries need to make heavy investments in education to ensure industrial development, and without such an investment, it is argued, the development will hardly be attainable.
"I have no doubt in my mind that holistic education has a key part to play in determining a nation's development. The experience of the industrial, and hence the developed countries clearly, shows that to further the process of development there is the need for educated persons.
I must, however, concede that a nation's development does not depend upon any type of education. Studies on the growth of education in industrial countries clearly indicate that industrialization owed little to formal education." Indeed, mass formal education itself owes its emergence to industrialization, which was given rise to by apprenticeship".
He said it is fact that, in several African countries, up to 40 percent of all government expenditure has been on education, usually of the grammar type, and in Ghana particular, a sizeable percentage of all government expenditure is spent on education.
"In purely economic terms, direct investment in industry produces higher returns than a similar investment in the education of the grammar type.
For it cannot be denied that developing countries such as Ghana need to turn out enough educated persons to man the commercial and industrial sectors of the economy," he observed.
In his suggestions, the developing nature of Ghana calls for massive investment not in the grammar-based but in industrial-based education which alone can facilitate or promote industrialization and hence economic development.
He added that there should be interdependence between the educational system and the nation's economy. Thus, the educational system and the nation's economy must be in equilibrium.
"In other words, our educational policy should be informed and defined not only by the type of economy we have but also by the type of economy we desire."
In light of all this, he said there is a need to take a critical look at our educational policy in relation to the type of economy we both operate and desire.
"We need to rationalize and enforce programmes we offer in our educational institutions to meet the demands of our economy. The current educational policy that places the emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is a step in the right direction. But STEM requires more capital investment and participation of the business and industrial community to make it work,” he suggested.
