LET'S ALL ADDRESS THIS PROBLEM (OCT 18, 2010)

REVERTING to the three-year senior high school programme, as promised by the government, has finally taken effect with its accompanying challenges.
Without going into the merits and demerits of the policy, all of us must acknowledge that any new programme or policy faces some teething challenges. In this particular case the main challenge has to do with classroom and dormitory accommodation.
That is why the DAILY GRAPHIC highly commends the various headmasters and their staff for putting into practice, one of the cardinal ingredients of teaching — improvisation.
Across the country, the headmasters and their staff are improvising to ensure that the students are accommodated for earnest work to begin.
Some schools have imposed heavy levies on freshers, which, according to these school authorities, are meant to be used to provide accommodation and other academic facilities.
Indeed, their attempt to improvise has brought in its wake certain developments that have elicited some criticisms. The loudest of the criticisms have perhaps come from the Ministry, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and some parents.
Is it not ironical that the very parents who paid huge sums of money to private school proprietors at the basic school level for infrastructure and maintenance tend to complain when they are to make similar payments at the senior high school level? In most cases, the payments they are asked to make are just a fraction of what they pay to private school proprietors at the basic level.
The DAILY GRAPHIC is tempted to ask whether it is because almost all the senior high schools are owned by the government. We think Ghanaians should be prepared to pay something little to provide or improve facilities in these schools, which are properties of the government, which we are all part of.
We also suggest that instead of the Ministry and the GES criticising and contemplating on applying sanctions against these schools, the schools should rather be encouraged for their initiative. What the Ministry of Education and the GES should do is to ensure that these additional payments are streamlined, controlled and monitored so that people do not take advantage of the situation to fill their pockets. The Mnistry and the GES should as well ensure that parents are not unnecessarily overburdened with financial commitments.
The DAILY GRAPHIC also thinks that all stakeholders — the senior high schools, the government through the Ministry of Education, the GES, parents, old students associations and teachers — should come together at this time and find innovative ways of addressing this challenge.
Having said so, we wish to remind the government to provide accommodation for teachers as well even as it is providing for students across the country. A number of educational policies have failed to yield the desired dividend because the most important stakeholder — the teacher — was not catered for.
Finally, we entreat Ghanaians, irrespective of political affiliation, to partake in addressing this temporary obstacle. Thereafter, we can give ourselves a pat on the back. After all, that is what nationalism is all about.