An Open Letter to Our New President and Ghanaians

From Joe Kingsley Eyiah, Teacher, Brookview Middle School, Toronto

Dear Mr. President, I wish to use this opportunity to congratulate you on your ascension to the highest position in our motherland, Ghana. Ghanaians are also grateful to God for the peaceful handing over of power from the Kufour administration to that of yours. May God richly bless you and guide you in your new role for Ghana.

To my fellow Ghanaians living in our motherland, I congratulate you on your maturity and God-Fearing spirit which have made Ghana an eye of Africa politically. Let us choose hope over fear, hard work over laziness, inclusion over nepotism, and the way forward over the way backward.

I agree with Otchere Darko in his comment as part of response to Pof. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe’s article on Ghanaweb (Jan. 29, 2009) that, “In Ghana, while there was a general feeling that some things were not right in some constituencies, there was a general feeling, especially among the independent observers, that ON THE WHOLE the elections were ‘free and fair’. As a nation, we still have work to do in order to improve the conduct of future elections.” I hope your administration will not wait till the dawn of the next elections (2012) before making funds available to the Electoral Commission to make our electoral process more effective and less disputable. A word to the wise is enough!

Meanwhile, may I, humbly, as an educationist, request the attention of our new President, Honourable Professor John Evans Fiffi Attah Mills in addressing the problems confronting the education system in Ghana.

Mr. President, EDUCATION has been the major facilitator and catalyst in the astonishing changes and transformation sweeping through the world today. The role of formal (school) education in the liberation of the individual mind as well as economic dependence and in national development is therefore quite obvious. Thus, education pays off not only in literacy but also in income! For example, a 2001 Statistics Canada study prepared by University of British Columbia economists David Green and Craig Riddell, found each additional year of education boosts a person’s annual salary by an average of 8.3 percent. The report follows two other recent StatsCan (Statistics Canada) surveys comparing education and income levels. The survey found education was one of the most important factors contributing to financial security. And that, families in which, the main income earner had a high-school diploma posted a median net worth of $62,500. If the breadwinner held a university bachelor’s degree, the number nearly doubled, rising to $117,500. (Today, March 19, 2001, Toronto-Canada) It is therefore quite obvious that education is very imperative to the sound development of individuals and nations. Every country ought to provide its people with qualitative and not only quantitative education! And every parent ought to ensure that their child gets the best of formal education as much as possible.

Reforms in the educational systems of countries like Norway, Australia and Canada, to mention a few, seek to make pre-university/tertiary education cost effective. For example, in Ontario-Canada, High School (secondary) education has been reduced from five years to four years (Grades 9 to 12 instead of Grades 9 to 13). Thus, in Ontario a student has eight years of elementary education and four years of secondary education before entering university or college. This smooth run up the ladder of education in Canada makes pre-tertiary education cost-effective. Twelve years of pre-university/college education instead of fourteen or sixteen years!

Before Rawlings Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary Schools reforms (JSS & SSS), Ghana had a primary (basic) education of six years, middle school education of four years and secondary education of seven years before university education. Pre-university education at that time was seventeen years! The JSS & SSS reforms reduced the duration from seventeen to twelve years. However, the new secondary education policy under Kufuor’s administration increased the duration again from twelve years to fourteen years (three years JSS, one-year compulsory apprenticeship after JSS and four years SSS)! I think what we mostly need is the injection of proper management of education in Ghana; the provision of basic infrastructure and teaching/learning materials to all secondary schools; improvement in teacher education; and proper supervision of teachers as well as improvement in basic education (K-G to Primary 6) which forms the foundation of the child’s educational journey! In the absence of these no long years of secondary education or any amount of compulsory apprenticeship for JSS graduates will bring improvement in the quality of secondary education in Ghana.

A policy document on basic education improvement sector program put together by the government in 1996 to ensure Free Compulsory and Universal Basic Education (fCUBE) for all outlines government intentions for basic education in these words, “The Government is committed to making schooling from Basic Stage 1 through 9 free and compulsory for all school-age children by the year 2005. Through the components of its program for Free Compulsory and Universal Education, the Government of Ghana is committed not only to achieving universal access to basic education in ten years, but also to IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION SERVICES OFFERED.” (emphasis supplied) One can conveniently argue that we are yet to see any improvement in the quality of education offered at the basic level, if not at all levels, of education in the country since the implementation of the education reform. No wonder the news report from Ghana last month that the President’s Committee on Review of Education Reforms has detected a number of defects in the existing educational structure!

The 11-year basic education made up of kindergarten, primary and junior schools will be adequate in providing the needed foundation for further education. However, I see the need for revamping the resources at the kindergarten and primary schools at the basic level to establish quality foundation for the country’s education system. Adequate learning and teaching materials MUST be provided in classroom at that level to ensure effective learning and teaching process.

Teachers must be well prepared for our primary schools throughout the country to facilitate learning and smooth transition for students from the primary to the junior secondary school. This calls for the involvement of the education committees at the district assemblies in effectively recruiting potential and capable teachers for training at the Teacher Training Colleges and their subsequent postings to primary schools in the districts. The programs at the Teacher Training Colleges must also be made to address the needs of teaching in our primary schools.

Mr. President, we welcome new landmarks in the country’s education but we must be weary of landmarks, which are mere political shows without proper foresights. Any new policies must seek to improve the quality of education in Ghana and make the learning process more meaningful to the student. For, according to Benjamin Levin (1995), instruction for the poor must not focus on rote skill development, or have a dismissal of higher order thinking skills but rather these students should be taught more and be given more opportunities, which otherwise they lack. It is not surprising that criticism exists about how the education process creates a cyclical class, racial, gendered structure for the poor and those that fall out of the mainstream or the dominant society: “Education certainly has the function of meeting the needs of the society of which it is a part, whether these are expressed in economic terms a matter of equipping the workforce with relevant skills and capacities or in broader terms of inducting young people into cultural and moral norms...there is also another view that a principal function of education is to depress the expectations and ambitions of those many young people to whom our societies will not be able to offer rewarding of satisfying work (Smith, 2005)”.

Arguably, the length of Secondary School education in Ghana could be six years (3 years JSS and 3 years SSS) if strong foundation is laid for the student at the Primary School level. This is cost effective!

I hope, Mr. President, that you will ensure that the Ministry of Education under your administration DOES NOT PLAY POLITICS with the EDUCATION SYSTEM in Ghana.

I personally wish you God guidance in your stewardship as the leader of ALL Ghanaians until Jesus comes again to take us to a better world. MARANATHA.

Yours truly, Teacher Joe Kingsley Eyiah