By Kofi Akordor
ONE of the things the Kufuor administration did to our educational system was to introduce a reform which started and ended with changes in name and duration. The former junior secondary school (JSS) became junior high school (JHS) while the senior secondary school (SSS) became senior high school (SHS)). As part of that reform, the duration of the former SSS, now SHS was extended from three to four years.
I had earlier discussed this subject in an article published in the October 16,2007 issue of this column, with the headline : Our children or guinea pigs?, and made the argument that just changing names and extending the duration of the educational system without corresponding improvement and expansion in infrastructure, improving upon the quality of teaching and making the service conditions of teachers better will not bring about the desired results.
Today, the problem has come back to confront us, as a new national debate has started as to whether the four-year SHS should be maintained or we should go back to the three-year duration, an agenda the National Democratic Congress pledged to pursue if it should win the elections.
When new educational reforms were introduced in 1987, the argument was made that the new system will emphasise practical and employable skills to make the young graduates more useful to themselves and society even at the JSS level.The idea was to reduce the number of school drop-outs so that those who could not continue on the academic ladder could find something useful doing.
The new reforms, therefore envisaged the provision of well-equipped workshops to train pupils in skills such as masonry, carpentry, painting, plumbing, batik, tie-dye and many others. The programme, however, started on a faulty note. There were no workshops. Where there were workshops, there were no tools. Above all, there were not enough teachers for the vocational skills. Call it an old system with a new name.
The second major object of that reform was to reduce the number of years pupils spent in school from the original 17 years before one could enter a tertiary institution to 12 years. The system never considered the number of JSS graduates who will battle for admission to the SSS annually.The old system had the advantage of allowing a gradual distribution of the pupils through the Common Entrance Examination until the last batch reaches Standard Seven where they sat for the Middle School Leaving Certificate Examination (MSLCE) and continued with their education or went into apprenticeship from there.
By this time, the original number on roll might have reduced drastically to lessen any pressure on the second cycle schools.
Performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) have never been encouraging and various reasons have been assigned for that, and the least that should engage our precious time is the duration of the programme. But we took the shortest route to the solution by simply changing the names of the schools and added another year to the SSS programme, and expect that will do the magic.
Another debate has started and we should expect all sorts of arguments in favour of either the three-year system or the four-year duration. One of such arguments made by the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) was that the three-year system only favours the very brilliant students. That sounds quite weird, especially from people who are themselves experienced teachers. The example they gave to buttress their point was that out of the 130,000 students who wrote the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) last year, only 20 had eight As. So in the opinion of CHASS, the three-year SHS only benefited 20 brilliant students in 2008. If this country could only produce 20 brilliant students in a whole year, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the system, and cannot be solved with an additional one year.
The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) is fully committed to the three-year system. NAGRAT’s position is that more funds should be committed to the development and improvement of infrastructure. Unlike NAGRAT which is trying to identify the realities on the ground, CHASS which is better positioned to appreciate the decay in facilities in the public schools are only imagining things.
No educational system, no matter how well-intentioned and fashioned, can function properly if the essential ingredients in the system are not adequate. The truth is that basic facilities for our schools are lacking. Talk of decent classroom accommodation, learning materials, well-motivated and disciplined teachers, and most of the public schools do not come near the grade.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for pupils from the public schools to enter any of the prestigious second cycle schools. Naturally, students from the public schools will find it difficult to enter the tertiary institutions. Given their poor and sordid circumstance, if you give students in these schools even 10 years, they will still not be able to make the grade. That is why those parents who can afford it are sending their children to private schools, while some engage private teachers to give additional tuition to their children.
What will an additional year to do a pupil who is in a deprived school, without the full complement of teachers, and only has a tree as roof over his head.
The 12-member committee that has been constituted to revisit the matter will only add to our financial burden without bringing out anything new that will solve the problem. The budget for the so-called national forum can benefit a deprived school in a more positive way. Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, the Chairman of the committee which drafted the 2001 report on the country’s educational reforms, was right when he declared that any fresh debate on the subject would be needless since his committee had already done a thorough job on the subject, and came to the conclusion that the three-year SHS should remain.
As a nation, we like committing resources to ventures that do not bring any worthy returns. Why should a high profile committee spend days, weeks and who knows, months, just to deliberate on whether the duration of a school system should be three or four years? Will that bring the classrooms our children so much need? Will that bring the much-needed textbooks? Will it transform our teachers into a core of dedicated and disciplined workers who will be committed to their profession?
Most of the people who are demanding extra years for the SHS may not be conversant with the conditions of schools in the country. A child in an empty classroom will not make any gains no matter the number of years he spends in that classroom. That same child will turn into a genius in an improved environment. That is what must engage our attention. The future of our children cannot continue to be toyed with at the whims and caprices of governments. The number of years will not count so far as the facilities are not in place.
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