Thursday,
December 26, 2013
My
good friends, thanks to Providence, we are celebrating another Yuletide season
and wishing each other "all the best that life offers". Good to go
that way because as human beings, we are gregarious and should ensure that
group interests are protected. But beyond that is the individual interest too
to realize.
Here
is the catch. Our celebration of the coming and going of seasons won't place us
where we want to be unless we take steps to turn the table in our favour.
"Life
is war", as we say in Ghana, which is why it is important for us to know
where to pick the pieces and why picking the pieces should place our country
where it should be so we can stop complaining about the dire circumstances in
which our people live.
And
it all has to do with the kind of preparation that is given the people to play
their part in nation-building. That is where education—formal education, I mean—comes
in. And there have been perennial complaints about the inadequacies of our
education system—not necessarily because it has failed to train us into
"parrots" or "copy cats" but because it hasn't helped us
solve pertinent problems to move our country forward: a fact that no sane
Ghanaian can afford to ignore or deny!!
Ghanaians
have been complaining about unemployment for many years. And there is even an
Association of Unemployed Graduates in Ghana to accentuate that reality!!
One
thing that I have stumbled upon on my rounds to explain a particular problem
that the youth in Ghana face in their struggle to chart a proper path in life
is the lack of guidance and counselling, especially at the formative stages in
life when they most need to be informed about the vicissitudes of life and how
the career choices they settle on can make or mar their lives.
I
have been to many places and seen many things to persuade me that the kind of
education system that we have in Ghana (since the immediate independence era)
hasn't helped the Ghanaian youth to know how to deal with life in school or
after school just because of the lack of guidance and counselling. In other
countries, structures are in place to help the youth know where to go after
schooling. And the youth don't fear the future for as long as they know how to
navigate the alleys of life-after-school.
I
have known it for a fact that the youth in those systems are guided right from
the moment they enter the formal school system to identify their naturally
talented areas and be helped to explore those areas without spreading
themselves too thin.
My
many years in the United States have exposed me to this reality. It may be so
in other countries, which is why those countries create opportunities for the
individual to realize his or her own aspirations for the good of the society.
In
Ghana, we have a mixed-bag kind of situation that hasn't helped us in any way.
The Ghana Education Service doesn't even see anything about individual talents
or future aspirations of students in the system. Neither does the Ministry of
Education do so. In effect, every student entering the system is lumped up
together with the rest and general education imposed on all to make them jacks
of all trades but masters of none.
In
consequence, then, the Ghanaian system of education is good at giving general
education that produces nothing concrete to boost national development. The
students take all courses and end up being confused and not really being guided
toward specific strongholds on which they can depend to make their presence
felt.
General
education is good inasmuch as it can produce an individual who knows a bit
about everything but it has its down side too, which is terrifying in our
present-day Ghanaian situation. It cannot give that individual the skills to
contribute anything concrete to solve any particular problem in any field.
It
all boils down to the lack of guidance and counselling. Let me cut a long story
short to say that there are many avenues for helping the Ghanaian student to
become more productive than what we have had all these years.
Why
is it difficult for the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service
to adjust to the demands of contemporary times and introduce guidance and
counselling as imperatives in the education of Ghanaian students? Guidance and
Counselling units at the various schools, well-staffed with people who know
what the field is about can go a long way to address pertinent needs.
I
have a hunch, which is that many job opportunities exist to absorb the Ghanaian
graduates if only the officials at the Ministry of Education and the Ghana
Education Service can be progressive in their thoughts and attitudes to help
give the requisite guidance and counselling support that the students need so
they don't go about plowing the entire field and reaping nothing.
The
worsening unemployment problem is attributable to this condition. Will our
authorities think outside the box to help our youth chart better paths in life?
What is the value of education if it can't help the individual fit into the
society to improve conditions?
All
the billions of hard-earned money being spent on education won't translate into
anything beneficial for the country if the "educated" youth cannot
fit into the society, that is, be employed after many years of being in the
classroom. Why are our leaders so lazy upstairs?
It
is annoying to realize that the Ghana Education Service has been decentralized
and has Directorates in all the districts of the country but cannot do anything
to improve the situation. In effect, all that the tax-payer’s blood, sweat, and
tears pump into sustaining the Ghana Education Service doesn’t produce anything
beneficial to assure the society of a brighter future. It has all along been a
drain.
Are
we Ghanaians so handicapped in our thinking abilities not to know how to make
education serve our purposes so we can use education to improve our standards?
·
E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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to continue the conversation.
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