A RADICAL APPROACH TO SECONDARY EDUCATION…

It is the dream of every young person to live a life of absolute fulfillment with a decent job, successful career and a rewarding future determined by one’s hard work and talent in a meritocratic system. This dream has become a mirage for most young people in Ghana through a multiplicity of factors including the inertia characterized by our educational system to respond to rapid change.

However, listening to the deputy minister of education a couple of weeks ago on Metro T.V’s ‘Good Evening Ghana’convinced me that in this government and particularly the ministerial team at the education ministry, the country has gotten a team that is determined to ensure the full realization of the dreams of our young population.

I must say the team at the ministry have not gotten everything right. I’m opposed to the Public University Bill, 2020 being pushed through by the ministry. But a broader review of the policy direction of the ministry since 2017 paints a picture that gives me a glimmer of hope.

With a relatively young population with 60% of the population estimated to be under 30 years, our country is faced with both a massive national security challenge and a unique opportunity for economic growth. An educational system to unleash the energetic, bright and creative minds of our young people cannot therefore be treated as a matter of choice but a necessity.

It is imperative that the education ministry exhibit the same innovative and bold approach which led to the adoption of the double-track system, in other aspects of the educational system that needs twerking such as curriculum reform, university admissions etc. While a greater focus on STEM is important, we should not lose sight of the arts and humanities. In order to have holistic development, we need both the philosopher and the painter.

With the first batch of free SHS beneficiaries exiting the programme this year, the competition for university admissions has become keener. It is interesting to note how the government is focusing on expanding facilities at the university level for the expected increases in numbers. I must issue a caveat that I’m not against university education. I am a graduate of the university system myself. We will however be deluding ourselves if we think that getting the majority of our SHS graduates into universities is going to be our way out of the development quagmire we are faced with.

If we are honest with ourselves, several university graduates will end up working in jobs that doesn’t require a university degree. There must be a radical approach in creating opportunities and non-university outcomes for the majority of free SHS who will end up in non-graduate jobs. Reforms needed in this area must be structural and deep, getting to the core of the issues.

A university system where only 10% of graduates gets jobs after the first year of graduating doesn’t need just twerking at the edges but a deep radical change of the whole cultural system. With advanced AI and technological change disrupting the established pattens of the job market, it is imperative our educational system can respond to such global changes for our young people to remain competitive globally. The memorization-heavy curriculum of our current system should be radically reformed to emphasis more on creativity, innovation, critical thinking and comprehension.

At dawn on a recent Thursday, I was talking to a friend in Boston. He told me about how the novel COVID-19 pandemic had scuppered the plans of her young sister who was planning to visit Ghana in her gap year. That got me thinking!

When I left secondary school in 2007, there was a gap year before one could go to the university. Indeed, it was one of the most frustrating times of my life. I am not sure when the concept of the gap year was wiped out from the academic calendar but I’m sure it had to do with the 3/4 – year batches of SHS students writing their exams together and the universities coming up with a system to accommodate admissions that year. I have been wondering why we have not realigned the academic calendar since then to bring in the concept of the gap year again. I am convinced of this because of the two things primarily.

My first reason was a reason I partially argued when the double-track system was introduced in 2018. Last year, I read a news report from the New York Times titled “In Ghana, Free High School Brings Opportunity and Grumbling”. Among the complaints of parents of beneficiaries of the free SHS programme who spoke to the NYTimes, one of them particularly struck me. A taxi driver who had lost his job recently was grateful for the programme, confessing that without the intervention he could not have afforded the fees of his twins who had gained admission to secondary school. His complaint with the double track system was summed with the words; “This system isn’t helping; they tend to forget what they’ve been taught…”. To say I was scandalized would be an understatement. The long-term benefits of students/young people utilising the ample time a gap year accord can be enormous. Same argument can be made of the long vacations associated with the double-track system. One could use the time to travel across the country to learn more about the different parts of our country; of course, if the family can afford the cost. One could also use the time to volunteer with a meaningful programmes or agencies such as orphanages, schools, prisons, hospitals, drug-rehab centres, community libraries etc. It could also be a time to learn new skills such as coding, driving, a second language, swimming etc. that will go a long way in moulding the character of the young person in future.

In the interests of the future job prospects of our young people, significant aspects of our university admission systems badly need reform. I have already indicated that the prevailing notion that 50% of our senior high school graduates must end up in universities (including technical universities who have gone haywire) is wrong-headed and unsustainable. The current admission system which relies entirely on the result of a single exams is completely untenable. A gap year between the completion of SHS and university admissions will afford universities the opportunity to undertake a more rigorous and modern approach to admissions which should go beyond the reliance on a single exam. This new approach could require students to write essays as part of the admission processes and interview sessions to test potential graduates on demonstrably leadership skills and participation in extracurricular activities. This will ignite the verve of these young people for the academic pursuits they are about to embark on.

This will afford us the opportunity to challenge established orthodoxies that hold young people back and entrench mediocrity across the nation and to deliver for the people. Together, we can redeem the soul of our nation!