Ghanian definition of quality education is more of exam results than any other aspect of educational outcomes – Rev. Simon Asige.

By : Raymond Batasia wegwi

A renowned educationist and a man of God, Rev Simon Asige got the filled to capacity crow of the Macdonald Hall of Navrongo Senior High School of diverse backgrounds very silent and occasionally applauding him for his Frank diagnosis of the challenges of the Ghanaian educational sector and the way forward as a key note speaker for this year’s speech and prize giving day celebration of Navrongo Senior High School (NAVASCO) organized by the 1982 group on the theme “Quality Education: The Role of Parents and Other stakeholders”.

In his key note address, Rev Simon Asige took his enthusiastic audience through four major areas such as, Whose quality are we talking about, What constitutes quality education, The Role of different stakeholders and the way forward.

On the first issue, he said the students view of quality is just passing the WASSCE with grades that can enable them to go for further studies and for the parents the are more interested in the exam results than any other thing, which is completely different from what industry requires.

Therefore it’s obvious that Ghanian definition of quality education is more of exam results than any other aspect of educational outcomes. He said even Ghanian politician is thinking in the same line citing H. E the current President of Ghana speaking at the 61st conference of CHASS at the Achimota school in Accra, Wednesday 11th October, 2023 said the 2022 batch of Akufo Addo “s graduates have provided the best Senior High School results so far in the past 8 years and this once again the president re-echoed exam results as a Mark of quality i. e. the pass rate of A1-C6, ignoring all other factors that play a serious role to ensure quality.

Rev Simon Asige said the 1987 Reform that reduced overall number of years spent in school at pre-tertiary from 17-12 years succeeded greatly improving access and cutting cost than quality . Equally the previous government provision of the E-blocks also succeeded in fair distribution of these blocks throughout Ghana to some extent access and today the current government has increased access across board at SHS level through both the free SHS and Double Track System with little improvement in quality Ghanian”s are yearning for.

According to Rev Simon Asige, what constitutes quality education is a measure of the efficiency of an educational process such as equality, sustainability, relevance, balance and child friendly environment.

He said all the stakeholders therefore must play their roles in achieving quality education we are all yearning for and as parents who are the first beneficiary of their wards should be the first teachers of them and that should put parents the best people to seek to ensure quality education is achieved by providing all the necessary moral support , learning materials ,attending PTA meetings and collaboration with teachers rather than attack them at will.

According to him teachers role is crucial, non-negotiable and complex because they are more than educators, counselors, mentors, role models and external parents to the students and therefore the must be qualified and experience teachers, regular training and evenly deployment of them throughout Ghana. adding that, teacher absenteeism and lateness to school is another major contributory factors to low quality of education and must be address. On the part of the students as stakeholders in quality education, he said the must shum cheating in exams because the good grades from such an activity does not translate into being good products in field of work because parents will die at the hands of their own children as doctors, building collapse at the hands of such engineers , Money is lost at the hands of such economists and accountants, Humanity die at the hands of such religious scholars and Justice is lost at the hands of such judges.

Therefore collapse of education is the collapse of the nation he said. He also said government been the biggest stakeholder, must provide all the needed infrastructure, textbooks, libraries and skills training for teachers to ensure quality and Ghana Education Service also ensure better and sustained monitoring with Civil Society organizations including old students associates all playing their parts well.

He said even though it’s always difficult, quality education is achievable when we all play our roles effectively.

Source : gbcuraonline.com