In the hurry to produce more “Sakawa” graduates of equal gender....
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

With youth unemployment hovering at 26%, according to 2006 statistics, our esteemed minds in Accra are debating about the length of the school year for the senior high school (SHS) program.

Worse, there is a specific proposal out to make the program three instead of four years.

Supposedly, the underlining reason for proposing the lesser-year program  is that all is not well with the status quo; the four year program. It has not done what it is required to do. And that it has not turned out well rounded, highly educated students.  Moreover, it has been costly. 

So now, it is time to roll out the old magic - the three year program that has been tried, tested and found to be good at producing "Sakawa," semi-illiterate graduates from our high schools.

How "three years" could help where four didn't has not been fully explained.  But you get the point.  The fourth year spent in a high school is now considered superfluous and politically expendable.

Yet statistics on the current four-year program are not out. The first batch of students on that program will be graduating in 2010. The 26% percent mentioned earlier is from 2006 and, therefore, more likely to be pertinent to youth schooled under the former three year program.

So, with no information on the four year reform, there is already a steady drum beat for change. And you ask why the worry?

Among the call for change is one nonsensical reasoning that beats all.  It comes from the Minister for Women Affairs, Hon. Akua Sena Dansua. She is quoted to have said that the “four year system if not changed will make female students find it hard to marry.”

How such a preposterous statement could come from a woman minister of all people is hard to fathom, until you suppose that her own objective for going to school in the first place might have been to finish quick and get married!

As usually true of politicians and some academics, the back and forth debate on school reform has caught on.  Forgotten in the process is the crucial point of educating our kids.

Education, as a necessary tool for raising kids, is all now about the speed with which kids are processed though the school system, or the length of time they spend there. 

Instead of spending debate time on whether our high sense of accomplishment as educators has been met; with considerations based on behavior, enlightenment, success rate at exams and chances at the job market, we worry about cost and duration.

Job availability should at least point to caution with the three year program.  Are there jobs for the the kids we rushed out under the former three year program?

The streets tell a different story. Many of these kids are now investing most of their productive time practicing crime at  "Sakawa" internet parlors because there are not enough job opportunities around.  The job market is already glutted with the unemployables (the poorly educated).  Under these circumstances, you would think a curriculum rich fourth year can be useful rather than harmful to the student.

The fourth year could act as a buffer.  Kids can use the time behind it to further improve and enhance skills and knowledge acquired, while the government finds respite in the extra year to improve on job opportunities for the eventual school leavers.  

But, if your view of the whole education process is akin to recruiting for political fodder, you will find the current, thorough education process under the four year system disturbing.

You are more likely to go with the three year program to produce kids who don’t read or write well, yet who at election time can act as thugs and neutralize sensible votes at the polls; out of ignorance of the issues at stake.

With the above flawed process, you would have set up a practice for maintenance and abuse of political power that can be used on bi-partisan basis.

Rather than using the time to debate the merits of a four year program and the current educational structures within the system, some members at the SHS Forum have gone political and accused the plan of being partisan.

 “The four-year SHS policy is a partisan policy. It is not in the best interest of the country. It is unduly expensive at the estimated cost of GHC 90 billion and cannot hold,” as quoted by The Daily Graphic, issue of January 29, 2009.

How, at this sum, the four-year program is costly and not beneficial is not stated. And whether the three year program proposed meets our social needs at this time is also neatly sidestepped.

Instead, the advocates for the three-year program stress the need “for the instructional time to be managed efficiently;” as if the four year goal forbids efficient time management.

Professors Djangma and Ivan Addae-Mensah seem to have the right ideas for a common sense approach at the SHS forum.

They said “going back to the old system (of three years) without taking adequate steps to address the shortcomings will be disastrous, especially for the majority of rural and urban public school children who always bear the brunt of education reforms that appear to be always predicated on the interests of the privileged minority.”

There is no social need for haste in our school system.  The economy is weak and not demanding more labor.  We are also not at war.  A shorter school program will hasten school kids into the streets, as happened before the four year program was re-instituted some eight years ago.  Witness our youth on the streets of Accra and other urban centers today selling dog chains.

The issues the professors have against the three year system are succinctly stated as “late entry of students to school, non completion of syllabuses and lack of time or unwillingness for co-curricular activities.”  In short, more time is needed to effect good education.

The cost for the four years spent in school is no problem for Professors Djangmah and Addae-Mensah either. They ask “whether the country could sacrifice quality for cost” and add “that maintaining the four year program would go along way to improve the educational system.”

All this happened at the national SHS forum. Not surprising, it ended in a deadlock with no consensus. How partisan can we get even on a subject like education?

 

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