Today while I was listening to the 6:00pm news on Joy fm, I heard news that spurred my friend and I into a heated argument about the Education system in Ghana once again. This time around the emphasis was on Public School Education. Before we delve into what transpired between us, let me first summarize what the news was about.
The crux of the matter was this, class 3 pupils interviewed by a Joy reporter couldn't read a passage given to them by their teacher. At first, when we were listening we thought it was one of those funny interviews where people who were not eloquent in the Queen's language were interviewed for the sake of humor. I should say, without under scoring the importance of this write-up, it was hilarious. The language (English) spoken by these pupils was a complete sham. Their inability to read a simple passage which might seem innocuous to some, actually points the direction of Public School Education in Ghana. Based on this , I must assert that the future for this country is quite gloomy; especially with respect to public education if this is a true representation of public school education. However, I vehemently refuse (being very subjective) to believe that the voices we heard (in statistics referred to as sample) was a true representation of results for public school education (population) in our beloved country.
The heart of the problem as we were trying to discern is based on the following premise.
1. The blue print for our education system is faulty, especially when we talk about implementation
2. To say the system is faulty is in itself wrong because there is no system to look to now, we must go back to the past before we can get things right.
I believe I should let the world know that I went to a public school. I should also state that before class 3, I could read and write excellently (where excellent here does not imply perfection). Now back to the topic at stake, common sense tells us that the premise chosen for this argument are both right. However, the purpose of this text is to determine which is more appealing and significant for the dispensation we find ourselves in. It should be noted that the full consequences of the two premise will not be fully be addressed in this write-up. However, an overview to clarify the two premise will be given and then the problems identified as the cause of the demise of public school education is also stated and explained briefly.
The argument for the first premise is derived from the notion that the blueprint for Ghana's educational system is superb; however, the problem with the system lies in the way and manner things are carried out (implementation challenges). This is because governments over the years has been toying with the educational system in Ghana. The ushering in of new governments spells out a different direction for the education system in the country. If we study the educational history in Ghana since the time of independence, we will actually find that it has changed significantly over the years (some positive, others negative). If we are to draw a picture for this, we will get a 'roller-coaster' diagram.
The next argument based on the second premise is that we do not have a curriculum for education now (where now denotes this current dispensation we find ourselves in Ghana); we are still in the experimental stage and there is no focal point to what should be studied in the country. The curriculum keeps changing and changing. The nadir of all these changes is the failure of the changes to capture the 'peculiar' educational needs of the 'cloud' generation (which inevitably implies we are flying blind) and that we should go back to the past and review what made education unique in those days. This is to find a solution to poor public education for the "Cloud" generation. Without a properly structured blueprint, we have no means of ever having a better educational system and invariably, a better Ghana. One may ask, why are facing all these troubles? Well, I will try and point out a few observations over the years.
One, we can associate the demise of Public Education to the quality of teachers produced from some of our Teacher Training Colleges. The last time I visited my village, I found reasons that entrenched my position on the issue of never enrolling my children in a public school. This is not only in my village, even when I was in primary school (in Takoradi), I witnessed the abysmal display of mediocrity among some of the ''Teacher College' trained interns in my school. The sad part of all my ranting is this, some of these people are still in classrooms teaching our future leaders. To me, a teacher who cannot display competence in the main language of instruction (English) should be further trained or booted out from the profession to find another job. The fact that we have to meet MDGs does not necessitate Ghana Education Service (GES) to fill our classrooms with 'empty barrels'. The reason why some of these kids speak horrendous English and are unable to read is because the teachers teaching them cannot do so themselves. I wonder what the outcome would have been if the teacher was rather given a passage to read from. In short, you cannot give what you don't have.
Another problem I have observed is the pursuit of goals and objectives set by Bretton Woods institutions as I alluded in meeting MDGs. Most of the time because of the conditions incorporated into grants and loans from such institutions, the country sometimes hurriedly pursues programs that might not cause the economy to burgeon (in terms of best practice and quality assurance), although these programs are relevant.
The third problem is the lack of 'local content'. Local content in this regard refers to a tailored Ghanaian education based on the demands, needs and the challenges we face in our Ghanaian economy. This country can never develop if it keeps using books produced and designed for foreign economies. Never, our chase for development will be but a continuous mirage if we continue in that path. Ghana is a sovereign nation, located in a particular demography, with citizens who have peculiar orientation, characteristics and features. Until we have been able to capture the essence and spirit of the Ghanaian in our curriculum we will never progress from this stage of under development. This particular situation is of uttermost worry to me because as an economics student, every example and textbook I read was in relation to foreign economies. Four years of studies in a university in Ghana and I am well versed in the American economy than my own. I believe we get the picture. So how do we deal with these problems?
The answer to this question is quite straight forward: we have to deal with the problems mentioned above by pursuing policies that strengthen our institutions, getting the implementation right in the process of course, ensuring that the human resource in that field (education) are enhanced to the best attainable level and ensuring that the curriculum we design for our schools are able to capture the essence and spirit of the Ghanaian and the Ghanaian.
This to me is the way forward. In my opinion this country's economy can perform marvelously only if institutions are strengthened. Ghana Education Service can carry out its duties 'distinctively' if it is strengthened logistically, infrastructural-wise and in terms of the quality of its human resource. This is the only way forward.
CONCLUSION
In the end, I should say the premise for this write-up (1. The blue print for our education system is faulty, especially when we talk about implementation
2. To say the system is faulty is in itself wrong because there is no system to look to now, we must go back to the past before we can get things right.) are both relevant to this dispensation if we are going to revolutionize Public Education services. It is a combination of the solutions to these two problems stated as our premise that has the potential of changing the phase of Public Education in Ghana.
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