“The paradox of education is precisely that, as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is educated.
Jams Baldwin”
Introductory Fact: Dealing with educational issues in Ghana is a bid to engaging a positive care for our development and economic growth.
In every country, the youth’s education constitutes a greater part when it comes to the development and growth of that country. However, if the youth are not well educated, resourced, and equipped, their potentials are hindered and thus they cannot effectively contribute to their nation’s growth. This could be because of inadequate skills, knowledge, and education, and thus leaving most of them unemployed and unable to fend for themselves and their immediate families. Ghana’s accomplishments in advancing access to education over the past decades have certainly been impressive. The country’s youth literacy rate for instance jumped from 71% in 2000 to 86% in 2010. Ghanaian children now attend school in higher rates than their counterparts in many other African countries, as well as in developing nations in other world regions. But the issue is “Do we have enough classrooms to house them in”?
The sitting government has made education accessible for all from Primary to Senior High level. Thus, a good decision which will help build the nation’s literacy rate, economic growth, and social development but again “Are there adequate teachers and good infrastructure to help with the accessibility of Education?”
With the pressure arising from the large population in our country especially the youth, there is a need to have a policy framework to ensure every community or district has a good infrastructure and well equipped classrooms with ICT labs which I believe governments has that. But enforcing the policy goes a long way because of the long hierarchical system of power and issue of corruption and lack of accountability from the government to the citizens.
Challenges facing our educational system includes the following:
- Barriers to educational access remain remarkably high, especially affecting certain poor groups and individuals, remote geographical areas, and women.
- The country’s education system continues to be of poor quality. There is a lack of qualified teachers, poor training for teachers, no unified curriculum with economic and civic relevance, poor education infrastructure and meagre supplies of instructional materials and textbooks.
- A lack of responsiveness to the productive sectors’ labour market needs. Factors in this include a failure to prioritize early childhood education, a limited focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and a shortage of skills relevant to productive sectors such as agriculture, livestock, and fisheries.
- The current education system is hampered by insecurity and political instability, as well as limited policy and regulatory mechanisms.
- Inadequate Trained Teachers: Most schools do not have well trained teachers to teach in their schools. Most of their teachers are JHS or SHS leavers although we have competent teachers but most lack the training being given at the training schools.
The Way Out
- Recycling: Our neighbours in Tanzania and Kenya came out with a fascinating policy some few years back. The Cameroonian authorities for instance recently rolled out a campaign to eliminate non-degradable plastic bags and bottles and this measure has helped in halting the Risk of plastic bags to human and animal life as well as the environment. These plastic wastes are recycled into building and I believe we as a country can introduce it to our educational system by using plastic to build classrooms focusing in the rural areas.
- The government can roll out a policy which will ensure that there will be separation of waste whereby waste plastic bottles can be reused to build. With this we will be fight two issues which is the poor infrastructure facilities for school and reduction of plastic waste. I believe such policy might not be viable for now in Ghana, but the Recycling of plastics and Rubber materials is possible.
- Developing and implementing a unified national qualification framework that recognizes overall knowledge and skills acquisition qualifications.
- Harmonizing education stakeholders to unite their strengths, efforts, and resources to develop the education system.
- Having more youths to participate in decision making concerning education and development and how to implement the policies made by the government.
- Creating stakeholder awareness about the importance of gathering reliable data and research to improve and develop the education system
- Allocating sufficient national budgetary and financial resources to implement overall strategic priorities for education
Summary
Education is one of the most important determinants for an individual’s productivity and future success and is also one of the key drivers of economic development. Government alone can’t do everything, and I believe we as citizens can do something to see to it our educational system is something good to write home about.
Conclusion
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
– Will Durant