The Private Universities Students Association of Ghana (PUSAG) has ascribed the poor performance in the 2016/2017 WASSCE primarily to government’s failure in properly handling the educational sector.
According to the association, the educational architecture in Ghana is treated like another bargaining chip mindlessly used by the powers that be to score political points regardless of the repercussions on persons at the receiving end of their actions.
PUSAG therefore urged government to place education at the top of their priority list and as such, adequately invest in it.
Below is the statement released by PUSAG:
Monday 15th August, 2016
STATEMENT FROM THE PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION OF GHANA (PUSAG) ON WASSCE FIASCO AND MORE
Education in Ghana has been tossed around for quite some time now and to the disadvantage of the major stakeholders; comprising students and parents/guardians. Sadly, on the other hand political parties who are primarily the guilt sit around the spoils of war to feast and blindly politicize the future of our motherland to the disservice of Ghanaians. They have taken education, an otherwise sensitive discipline, as a political football, which is played anytime at their behest and regrettably, at the expense of the nation.
The Private Universities Students’ Association of Ghana (PUSAG) wishes to first and foremost, congratulate all the 2015/2016 WASSCE graduates. Admittedly, the nation did not receive the best of news by way of the performance of these candidates in the exams but the least we could do, is to still encourage them to persevere in the pursuit of their education because that is the surest way of securing their future for God and country.
PUSAG has observed with grave concern, that the educational architecture of our country has some fundamental defects despite the conscious attempts to redress same. Unfortunately, we are majoring in the minors and minoring in the majors. The obsession of our leaders to make education free for the purpose of political expediency is undoubtedly, one of the major challenges confronting the sector. Others also pay all their attention debating on the duration of second cycle education whilst the germane issues like the provision of teaching and learning materials, academic infrastructure, teacher motivation and restructuring of the curriculum to reflect the contemporary needs of society among others, are overlooked. That is why we are where we are and we shall continue to constructively criticize and suggest possible solutions until we embrace a new paradigm and begin to concern ourselves with the essentials.
Quality education is one that is able to fully equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to successfully and meaningfully contribute positively to national development and not one that produces in large quantities, graduates whose skills and knowledge doesn’t reflect with the expectations of industry and indeed all the stakeholders in our education enterprise. This can be achieved by ensuring at all-time that we have a good student-faculty ratio for a comprehensive intellectual development.
The disappointing WASSCE results we experience consistently over the past decade essentially speaks volume of our inability to do the right thing. It is thus, an indictment on the relevant institutions tasked with this mandate which include the Ministry of Education as well as the Ghana Education Service. It is about time these institutions redirected their focus. There is the need to strategically draw a roadmap to have our students meet global standards since our competition with our contemporaries would not be a smooth ride in such a global village.
Government must also do more to significantly minimize the frequent occurrences of strike actions by our gallant teachers and general unrests which have characterized our labor front. Again, government must necessarily stabilize the collapsing economy and ultimately, provide an enabling environment that deals with the animal called, youth unemployment in order to transform the fortunes of this country for national growth and development.
The poor WASSCE results which have gained so much airtime can be attributed to many factors including lack of teacher motivation, inadequate supervision of teachers, inadequate logistics to facilitate service delivery and highly poor teacher to student ratio. It is instructive to observe that, teachers at the basic education level are supervised by circuit supervisors whereas those at Senior High Schools are not. This trend must be rebooked at again, because we need adequate and efficacious supervision at all levels of education.
PUSAG again believes that, some relevant external bodies higher than the Head teachers of the Senior High Schools should also assist in school governance and play a supervisory role on head teachers as well as both academic and nonacademic staff of these schools.
In conclusion, we expect government, relevant stakeholders and Ghanaians in general to assist in righting these wrongs by helping in the institution of key policies to enhance the educational system. We must all call the bluff of politicians who seek to play politics with educational discourse because same has proven to be a major setback under the circumstances. Government must also not hesitate in doing rigorous stakeholder consultations in the formulation of educational policies and programmes because there is energy in synergy. Once again, we encourage all the 2015/2016 WASSCE graduates and advice those who couldn’t make the expected grades to take advantage of remedial exams to better their results.
Thank you.
Signed
Francis Kwabena Asante
Media Relations Director
+233 24 267 7779
Richard Odame
PUSAG National President
+233 24 394 4302
By: Marie-Franz Fordjoe/Radio Univers 105.7FM
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