BARELY a month from now, thousands of final-year students of junior high schools (JHS) will be writing the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) throughout the length and breadth of the country in their quest to seek admission to various senior high schools (SHS).
Ordinarily, this annual ritual would have passed off without any notice but the change of the SHS programme from three years to four years by the NPP government and the subsequent reversal to three years by the NDC government have brought to the fore very pertinent issues which must be tackled dispassionately and urgently to put the minds of our future leaders, their parents and teachers at ease.
Our real worry is that under the current four-year system, no SHS graduates will be produced this year and yet our already choked high schools are expected to have enough vacancies by the next academic year (that is September) for those who will qualify for admission via this year’s BECE.
And the challenge is: Do we have adequate infrastructure, such as classroom blocks, dormitories and dining halls and enough teachers to take care of the anticipated explosive situation?
Already, reports reaching the Daily Graphic paint a gloomy picture of events. The aggregate result is that most high schools (SHSs) are likely to dramatically reduce their intake for the next academic year unless something very concrete and drastic is done to address the problems.
The nation has barely five months between now and the start of the next academic year to put things in the right perspective if we must not jeopardise the future of our children.
This is a matter that calls for urgent attention. There can no foot-dragging whatsoever. And the Daily Graphic urges the appropriate agencies — the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service and the GETFund — to put their shoulders to the wheel immediately and produce the desired results.
When the three-year or four-year debate was on, we all spent sleepless days and nights trying to justify one policy or the other. For those who supported the four-year policy, the refrain was that even in the United States where school facilities, resources, curriculum and teachers are of very high quality, the JHS is a three-year system and SHS four-year.
But the Daily Graphic strongly believes that it is not a matter of how long the course is but one of improving school infrastructure and the lot of teachers so that they will stay in the classroom to teach. Over the years, our governments have only succeeded in paying lip service to our educational system, hence the continuous decline in standards.
In his recent State of the Nation Address, President Mills promised, among other things, that “the government will this year implement more educational programmes to raise the standard of education in the coming years”.
He mentioned some of the programmes as the refurbishing of science resource centres in schools, the provision of other infrastructural facilities in SHSs the cessation of schools under trees and the elimination of the shift system.
Additionally, he said measures were underway to improve the status of teachers in the country, saying: "At the end of the year, I expect the GNAT, NAGRAT and the UTAG to make separate pronouncements on whether the lot of teachers has improved under our administration or not."
The Daily Graphic hopes we can hold the President to his word and look out for a refreshing change in the direction of our education in the not-too-distant future.
Whether we like it or not, education is the gateway to achieving success in any field of human endeavour. Emerging socio-economic trends have shown that without quality, sound and accessible education, the youth will not be able to realise their full potential will for whatever career they want to pursue in future.
Successive governments have made so much noise about investing in the education of the youth as a guarantee for the country’s future. Enough is enough. The time to act is now. Is anybody listening?
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