THE NEW NORMAL…???

A couple of weeks ago, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Wa Central, Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo, tweeted about his ordeal as a legislative representative of the people. He bemoaned the incessant monetary demands on him by constituents and ended his ranting by asking; ‘can we change politics?’

Well, my answer to him is, there is a way we can change this kind of pork-barrel politics. But that must start from the way we elect our legislators. Politicians aspiring to enter parliament never campaign on issues concerning the primary duties of a parliamentarian. They have succeeded in turning the elections to parliament as a contest to dole out patronage and parrot political party positions without paying any particular attention to local issues.

The media too has not helped very much in this skewing of the electoral process. They have allowed political actors to get away with this fundamental misreading of the concept of the separation of powers in a democracy.  The media, largely, doesn’t see it as its responsibility to educate the electorates on the functions or duties of a legislator as against the development agents appointed by the President at the local level.

It’s fairly common for a media person to ask an aspirant what he/she has done in the constituency in terms of physical development rather than examining the aspirant’s views on education, size of government or health financing. In Ghana’s legislative elections and to an extent parliamentary practice over the years, individual positions of legislators on issues are opaque and rarely publicly stated. Most votes in the house, even, on contentious issues are still done by secret balloting with constituents largely ignorant of positions taken by their legislators.  

Everyone is boxed-in supposedly in the interest of the party. Rebellion against the official party position can be costly if even it is the most logical thing to do. Forces of the party can be arraigned at party primaries against a sitting Member of Parliament who does not tow the party line to make sure he/she loses.

This system of politicking and electing parliamentarians has rendered the principle of separation of powers useless and impracticable, plunging Ghana’s parliamentary development and democratic governance into a quagmire. We have created a system where parliament is supposed to be the supreme forum for law-making and holding the Executive to account but unfortunately, we do not assess the competence of people seeking to enter that August chamber in that direction.

The President in his State of the Nation address earlier this year indicated that the government was targeting a three-fold increase in the enrollment of students into Tertiary Educational institutions. The current number of secondary school graduates who continue to tertiary institutions after completion represent 18% of the total number of graduates that pass out of our secondary school annually. The government’s ambitious plan seeks to move this to 40%. Much as this is commendable on the face value of it, I would caution a bit of hesitancy on the part of government in that direction.

I daresay many students would be “better off” if they did not go to university or any tertiary institution but rather concentrate on apprenticeships. The sheer high numbers of students who are taking up places at university only to end up in the growing pool of unemployed graduates should rather inform policy to move the focus of our education to empowering young people with employable skills rather than liberal degrees which they may even be inadequately prepared for.

Universities play a key role in the development of countries. Universities are at the forefront of cutting-edge research and innovation needed for development. But the idea of pushing a significant number of secondary school graduates to university to satisfy a political objective is short-sighted and must be ditched immediately. The idea of meeting a target without any skills-needs assessment will only lead to high numbers of half-baked graduates who will fail to gain well-paid, successful careers despite getting a tertiary degree. Rather more people should be encouraged to take up further technical education and apprenticeships, instead of university admissions, as it would help them have more rewarding careers.

Recently, data from the Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, revealed that only 10 per cent of graduates found jobs after their first year of completing school.

The data also indicated that it may take up to 10 years for a large number of graduates to secure employment. In light of all this, one would ask, what is the policy rationale for the target of the government? Why would the government spend millions of Cedis to subsidise tertiary education instead of investing it in apprenticeships and TVET to empower young students with relevant employable skills?