General News of Sunday, 6 October 2013

Source: peacefmonline

Education administrators should be innovative

Member of the Communications Team of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Asamoah Gyamfi, has hit hard at those at the helm of the country’s educational system accusing them of collapsing the system with a rather strict and unnecessary grading policy which has led to many brilliant students losing the opportunity to continue their education.

Reports say students with grade D7 one cannot gain access to Polytechnic and other tertiary institutions.

In August 2012, the Ministry of Education warned that tertiary institutions that do not follow the applicable entry requirements to admit WASSCE students will have their accreditation revoked. Consequently, the ministry through the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the National Accreditation Board (NAB), directed the NAB to publicize, in consonance with the Tertiary Education Accreditation and Establishment Regulations (LI 1984, 2010), the applicable entry requirements to all tertiary education institutions in the country.

A directive was thus issued that tertiary institutions, be it public or private, should not admit WASSCE candidates students with grades D7 and E8 as a means of raising the standard of education in the country.

The order followed an audit inspection conducted by the board at the university which found out that some of the students who were at various levels were admitted with only proficiency certificates in Computer Studies and other courses. NAB, thus ordered some private universities to withdraw almost 4000 students. Some of these students did not actually enter these universities with proficiency in computer science, but had either D7 or E8 in one core subject or one elective subject.

Speaking to the issue, Asamoah Gyamfi posited, “in Ghana, we are our own enemies…we have a bunch of rusty, incompetent so called educationists in this country.”

“…in this world, some people are late developers in schools and so equal opportunities should be given to them as well,” he enlightened on Okay fm.

He continued “schools outside the country which have high educational standards than ours, admit students with aggregate 13….we must not use limited schools in the country as an excuse to end the education of brilliant students.”

“…most of the people who qualify for admission into Universities do chew, pour, pass and forget……the country is not developing because those who are manning our educational process don’t think beyond their nose except administrative works and seminars, he said.”