So i have been seeing this book (Waiting for Superman) on my shelf for quite a while now i had never paid attention to it as I wasn’t too drawn by the title and direction. I was looking more for books that had to do with startups, entrepreneurship, technology, Finance and the like. Today, in my quest for a new book to read I saw this book one more time. I read the blurb all over again made a quick scan and figured i HAD to read this book.
The book generally talks about how America is saving its failing public schools. To them, the classroom is a decisive instrument for the next 10-20 years than a battlefield (Here in Ghana our battlefield would be Politics).
Drumming it home, our public school system is in grave crisis. I know America’s education challenges MAY be different from those of Ghana’s but in all of it they identified a challenge and they are working towards solving and salvaging what is left of it. In Ghana we have had our fair share challenges in the education sector. In 2014, only 28% of students who sat the WASSCE examinations passed to further their education at the tertiary level and despite the increase in the number of candidates in 2015, the number of candidates qualifying dropped to 25%. What happened to the over 50%? especially when the enrolment is on the increase?
Has the system been set up to continually fail students sitting the examination. Since the introduction of WASSCE, why have we not been able to make it pass the 30% pass rate? Is it the way the subjects are taught? Are the questions set outside of the approved syllabus? Are teachers abreast with modern teaching and assessment methods? What is WAEC’s engagement with parents, teachers, schools and students beyond the examination? How do we improve on our gains at WAEC examination? Does the 3 years / 4 years juggle by different Governments have a role to play? These questions have been asked many times in times past. Our tertiary level is also fraught with its own challenges, university graduates SOMETIMES do not live up to their certificates and at times cannot even construct one english sentence without struggle.
Yes the Government of Ghana and other stakeholders have over the last decade invested heavily in programs to beef up performance (our spending on education has been around 25 % of our annual budget, and the number of infrastructure has increased consequently in the same period) yet the results from BECE, WAEC and our universities are proving otherwise. A lot more needs to be done, We need reforms in our educational sector, we need specific interventions in this regard.
10-20 years down the line what would the narrative be? Would there be more jobs than people to fill these vacancies? Would the new trend be an exodus of Ghanaian students to a foreign land in search of quality education, for lack of trust for our systems here? It is ours to decide our fate; each and every one of us. That Math scholar can gather and teach those kids in his locality, That teacher can tutor kids in a classroom enough so they do not need to sign up for his/her weekend class, the Government can make more resources, and policies available for an effective education system, Corporate institutions and NGO’s can make available resources to augment the efforts of the Government. If we cannot educate our youth then our future is as bleak and opaque as a brick wall.
In the mean time i would recommend this book to all stakeholders.
