There is no doubt in my mind that Ghanaians agree on the following when it comes to education; 1) Education is pivotal to national development

2) The quality of Ghana’s education is on the decline
3) Successive governments play politics with Ghana’s education
4) The educational reform program executed by the PNDC in the 80’s has not been successful

If education is pivotal to a country’s development and Ghana has seen little development (some growth but little development) over the past 50 years, it stands to reason that the educational sector in Ghana needs a lot of attention.

Every President should be interested in education but just what should we do about education?
Let’s first agree the basic issues about education:
1) The number of years spent in school is not really the issue (4 years SHS versus three years does not address the real challenges we have). In most parts of the world a 6-6-4 SYSTEM is applied from entry into primary school and in Ghana a 6-3-3-4 SYSTEM is employed (6 years primary, 3 years JHS, 3 year SHS and 4 years tertiary).

2) School-feeding programs and the provision of free school uniforms do not address the systemic failure of our educational system
3) Simply passing examinations is not the same as being educated
4) It is not likely that Government will ever be able to give free education to all citizens and thus in the short to medium-term parents and guardians have to bear some responsibility. The free SHS policy that some propose will not be sustainable in the medium to long term and will only impose significant financial burdens on the state in the coming years

5) An educated person is one equipped with knowledge, skills and abilities that enables problem- solving within the society. In Ghana educated people are not adequately equipped to solve societal problems

Let us also agree the current challenges with respect to education in Ghana;

1) The quantity of education has increased over the last decade but the quality of education has been sacrificed
2) Too many school leavers do not acquire employable skills
3) There is no enforcement of the right of every child to acquire free compulsory basic education as required by the constitution. Only proper decentralization will ensure that the law is enforced.

4) There is no connection between industry and academia so the country produces manpower in areas where there is no immediate requirement and fails to produce manpower in needed areas like Agric Technology.
5) From a financial perspective, education is still outside the reach of some Ghanaians
6) The teacher-student ratio is unacceptable mainly due to low wages in the educational sector
7) The oversight responsibility of GES is weak at its best
………..and yet about 30% of the national budget goes to “fund” education. What a joke!!!

What Are the Solutions to These Fundamental Challenges?

We have to make some hard choices in the short-term to address this critical sector.
First, we have to accept that expansion is good but it should NEVER be done to the detriment of quality. It does not make sense to build more and more schools to give poorer education to the masses. The President should focus on QUALITY in the short to medium term because if we educate even 20% of the populace very well, the impact they will make will ultimately lead to the education of the remaining 80%. This is a definite choice we have to make as a nation irrespective of what our “development partners” think or say.

Second, what can we do about improving quality? It is important at this juncture to point out that education can be segmented into two fundamental parts; COGNITIVE and PSYCHOMOTIVE. Over the years Ghana has produced a significant number of educated people in the COGNITIVE group. This type of education focuses on brain development and emphasizes reading, writing and arithmetic. This type of education produces a lot of graduates in Arts and Humanities. What has been lacking is the production of a good number of people educated in PSYCHOMOTIVES. This type of education focuses on developing both the brain and the hands. Typical disciplines include welding, fabrication, pottery, ceramics and the applied sciences. We do not have to look too far to understand why little has been done in the area of PSYCHOMOTIVE education – the investment required in terms of facilities and equipment is significantly higher for this group than for the COGNITIVE Group. But here’s the point; NO REAL DEVELOPMENT TAKES PLACE WITHOUT EDUCATING A GOOD NUMBER OF PSYCHOMOTIVES in every society.

The reason why we import everything from China is because we have not trained quality psychomotives over the years to fuel industry and production.
The reason why all the state enterprises collapsed in the 60’s and 70’s is partly because we did not have the right calibre of psychomotives in the country at the time. The reason why Ghana will not be industrailized anytime soon is because we do not have a solid industrial work force. Which one comes first? Industries or Manpower? I believe we need the rightly-skilled manpower first of all in order to BUILD and/or ATTRACT the industries that we require.
Rather than build more schools, the President should spend the entire educational budget for a few years on improving the QUALITY of education in existing schools. How?

a) Give full autonomy to the traditional secondary schools in the country with the condition that scholarship schemes are set-up to cater for about 20% of the intake (very poor Ghanaians) AND campuses should be built by these schools in all 10 regions in Ghana. For example Achimota Secondary school should have a Tamale campus. Why not?
b) Return the mission schools; clearly, the missions did a better job than government is doing right now
c) Position education as a foreign exchange earner. There is no doubt that a good number of Africans will be happy to educate their children in Ghana. Educational tourism is an area of NATIONAL ADVANTAGE.
d) Focus on improving Teacher Quality; some of the teachers we produce really suck (excuse me) and we have to develop competencies in PEDAGOGICS
e) Focus on developing managerial and entrepreneurial competencies for heads of institutions. Achimota School for instance is a powerful brand that can be harnessed in the hands of a good educationist/business man. There is no reason why Achimota cannot for instance attract rich South African kids.

f) Focus on providing Teacher Motivation; if we allow full autonomy to the good traditional schools and they establish campuses in all regions, teacher motivation will be addressed to a large extent. The other way to address teacher motivation is to ensure that there is an educational development plan for every district that focuses on providing accomodation facilities for teachers. Another incentive that can be considered is free education for all the registered children of teachers.

g) We cannot improve quality without a fundamental shift in curriculum development, in the application of teaching methods and in the execution of A New Proposed 6-3-3-1-4 Educational System.

The core philosophy of the new system is that the educational curriculum must contemplate the early development of BOTH cognitive and psychomotive skills in all pupils. To achieve this, equal emphasis must be placed on reading,writing and arithmetic as on the development of psychomotive skills. Psychomotive skills must be developed in 5 areas at primary level. The areas are;

1) Applied Arts (like pottery, woodcraft, cane/bamboo weaving, painting, glass technology etc)
2) Applied Science (Agro processing, Animal Husbandry, Bee Keeping, Milk Production, Fish farming etc)
3) Engineering Technology (this is very broad and includes Civil, Mechanical and Electrical/Electronic). Programs include Building Technology, Plumbing, Surveying, Refrigeration, Air-conditioning, welding & fabrication, electrical installation, digital technology etc.
4) Business Management (IT, Accounting Technology, Business Management, Import & Export Management)
5) Living & Lifestyle Technology ( Textiles, Fashion & Dressmaking, Hairdressing, Hotel

Mnaagement, Home Mnaagement etc)

The first 6 years of primary education should give all pupils a good grounding in all five areas. Naturally areas of interest and talent will emerge. It is important at that stage to have strong counseling programs to influence pupils to pursue careers in areas where they are naturally gifted. Counselling should not be at the pupil’s initiative. It should be an active program that engages every pupil at primary and JHS levels. At JHS level pupils should be guided to choose any two of the five areas for graduation. Thus pupils will have a further grounding in psyhomotive education in JHS. It is critical to point out that a lot of investment is required to properly equip schools to offer PRACTICAL EDUCATION in psychomotives. Finally at SHS Level, all students MUST major in one of the two areas already covered at JHS Level. Before graduation at SHS Level, students should either either solve specific community problems OR set up small or medium scale enterprises in groups. In other words the condition for graduating should be either the completion of a “project” that solves a problem or the incorporation of a small business. Education must be geared towards preparation for meaningful participation in society. With this approach, the first exit point out of the educational system should be after SHS (6-3-3) by which time students have real, demonstrable employable skills. This will happen by the age of 18 years (if primary education starts at age 6).

It is crucial to point out at this stage that this fundamental shift towards equipping all Ghanaians with at least one psychomotive skill and ensuring that business establishment is a condition for graduation at SHS stage will not only ensure that the products of our educational system are ready to contribute tosociety but it will also ensure that the stigma usually attached to psychomotive careers is significantly reduced.

Admitedly, this system cannot be implemented without some serious re-engineering of the entire educational sector. The traditional Vocational Institutes for instance will vanish because they have to be converted into either JH Schools or SH Schools. This will require a lot of planning, creativity and resolve.

The last part of the 6-3-3-1 system is the entrenchment of the Pre-University system or simply a re- introduction of A Level. In effect all SHS Leavers have the option of either working to earn an income or continuing to obtain the A Level certificate as a pre-requisite for entrance into a tertiary institution. A SHS leaver could also work for 2 years as a plumber for example while preparing to write A Level for admission into the University.

More than any other requirement, a total re-engineering of the educational curriculum is required for the new system in order to ensure that the country returns to the A-Level exam which guarantees smooth entry into any University in the world.
Another important feature of the new proposed 6-3-3-1 system is that it should allow for flexibility. Any post-primary student should have the option to defer their program for up to two years to pursue other interests or extend the last 1 year to 2 years to obtain the A Levels. A flexible educational system can however only thrive on strong systems of records-keeping, national identification and tracking.

h) Education cannot only be about cognitive and psychomotive skills. It is crucial that the teaching of VALUES is given special attention in the new curriculum. Nationalism, Patriotism, Integrity, Cleanliness and Making a Contribution to Community are important values and elements in national building. We have not emphasized these enough in the school curriculum. These values should be taught at home and reinforced in school.

It is only when the improved educational system has been designed and implemented that government can begin to look at expansion; not for the mere sake of expansion but for the sake of expanding while still maintaining the same quality of education.

The reforms required at tertiary level are not too many:
a) Make all tertiary institutions autonomous with specific quotas for need-based scholarships and the mandate/assistance to develop campuses across the nation. Why should we build new Universities in Volta Region and Brong Ahafo Region when we can give incentives to University of Ghana to establish Schools or Colleges in other regions. We tend to spread ourselves thin as a nation rather than leverage existing national assets.
b) Design a similar system as in SHS of ensuring that graduating students in Sciences and Applied Sciences solve pertinent national challenges. Of what use is a Mechanical Engineer to Ghana if he/she does not design a real engine as part of the conditions to be fulfilled to graduate with Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering?

The lack of practical education lies at the core of the ineffectiveness of education in Ghana.
Civil Engineers should come up with new road designs for Ghana to reduce the cost/kilometer of road constructed in the country. We have problems and we have educated people but we are not using their knowledge to solve these problems. Where is the leadership????
c) Publishing a national annual manpower need report in conjunction with AGI and the HR Institute to be used by career counselling teams at all levels of education

Finally, all Ghana’s major challenges are multi-faceted and the solutions to these problems are inter- linked (or cross-sectorial)

If the President does not fundamentally address the poor educational system for instance, we cannot solve the looming unemployment crisis facing this nation.