Why put out 2 batches of SHS students when no opportunities exist for them? Educationist asks

A former Director General of the Ghana Education Service, Michael Nsowa, is appealing to policy makers to take a second look at the current structure of the nation’s Senior High School system and correct all anomalies before it is too late.

The current system will soon see two batches of final year students sitting the final year examinations. This will surely create problems of capacity of the existing universities to admit them.

The situation has been triggered by the scrapping of the four-year SHS system, introduced under the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) government by the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, in fulfillment of a campaign promise to the electorate. The NDC government argued there wasn’t enough infrastructure to absorb all students in High Schools and that parents will be over-burdened by fees for the additional year that was added to the previous three-year system.

But that political decision has resulted in a situation where the final batch of the four-year system and the first batch of the three-year system are going to leave school early next year.

Contributing to discussions on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Tuesday, Mr Nsowa who could not hide his frustrations, lamented: “What happens to these people when they come out? Where are they going to go”?

He noted that parents are very worried about the situation and keep inquiring about what arrangements are in place to absorb the students in the universities or engage these students in profitable ventures once they are out of school.

“Why would we want to send two batches of students into the world of work when there are no opportunities for them?” he queried.

The former Director of Education said there are others in the education sector who share his frustration. For instance, he said the Vice Chancellor of University of Ghana was at one point equally disturbed that out of 31,000 students who had qualified for admission into the school, the university could only admit 17,000. The situation will be compounded if the number of SHS graduates doubles.

On his part, Mr Nsowa thought it isn’t pragmatic to force students out of school when they haven’t even completed the curriculum.

He stressed that the responsibility lies with government to make proper decisions that will make life better for the younger generation.

Therefore, Mr Nsowa proposed: “These are issues we should go back and see whether we did the right thing. If we didn’t, we shouldn’t feel ashamed to [do the right thing]”.

He also called for a national forum to dispassionately debate propositions by the various political parties on how to restructure the whole educational system. 

source: Joy online

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