General News of Monday, 12 March 2012

Source: GNA

Ghana’s educational system is not pro-development – Rt. Rev Professor Kantanka

The Right Reverend Professor Osei-Safo Kantanka, Methodist Bishop of Kumasi, has called for a review of the educational system to make a practically-oriented mechanism to churn out creative and industrially-inclined graduates.

The current system, he said, was too academic and also does not support development as it laid much emphasis on the training of students purposely for examinations and certificates.

Right Reverend Kantanka was speaking in Kumasi at the induction of Mrs Aretha Addai, an educationist, as Director of the Kwadaso Methodist Women’s Training Centre.

He spoke on the topic ‘’ The Holy Spirit and Your Vocation.’’

‘’We have a lot of students nowadays graduating with First and Masters Degrees yet have no clear focus as to what to do or how to implement the knowledge acquired to bolster their career development’’, Right Reverend Professor Kantanka noted.

He was worried that most tertiary institutions were pursuing programmes and also had adopted a system that made it practically impossible for them to even manufacture prototypes of the very things they teach the students.

The Methodist Bishop advocated a paradigm shift from the ‘’grammar-type’’ of education, stressing that it was high time stakeholders invested in technical education.

This had the potential to bolster the industrial and manufacturing base of the nation as technical education exposes students to the principles of creative thinking, self-employment and ‘’can do attitude.’’

The Methodist Bishop charged the Mrs Addai to be duty-conscious to enhance the growth and sustainable development of the Centre.

Mrs Addai thanked the church for the confidence reposed in her and assured all and sundry that she would collaborate with stakeholders in her work.