Don’t come to us with free education this time - Anis Haffer

This year’s presidential election is fast approaching. Who would Ghanaians give the mandate to steer the affairs of this country?

As the presidential aspirants reveal their various campaign promises, education is always a key area. Over the years there have been heavenly promises on improving the standard of education in Ghana.

Some promised free education for every Ghanaian child, while others have donated teaching materials to some schools across the country. Unfortunately, these have yielded little results.

In an interview with Anis Haffer, an educationist, he stated that Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) scores in the country are very bad: some districts even score zero percent.

The pupils cannot be blamed entirely, indeed the calibre of teachers engaged to give skills and knowledge to this country’s children should be questioned.

According to Anis Haffer, there is the need to take a second look at the quality of the institutions that train teachers, their in-depth knowledge of the subject matter they teach and the right instructional strategy or approach they use in teaching that makes them effective teachers.

Anis Haffer throws more light on the current educational approach and why free education is not key Unemployment is increasing because the baseline skills required to survive as adults are lacking.

Senior high school students in Ghana write the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), yet have no idea about the cultural differences within the sub-region.

For instance, creative programs such as a term out of a class where students are allowed to travel on the road to at least three African countries from Ghana to Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and back to Ghana would give them exposure and widen their scope beyond the borders of Ghana.

This mode of teaching is done all over the world, an example is a semester at sea, in the USA.

One of our African proverbs reads, ‘if you close your eyes to facts, you would learn through accidents.’

As they come with their campaign promises remember a great nation is built on infrastructure but by skilled and educated minds.