<div dir="ltr"><div style="" id="stcpDiv"><div class=""><h1 class="">Is our educational system in shambles?
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<span class="">Is the standard of education falling in our country</span>
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By: Dr Albert O. A. Tsolu </span>
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Date : </span>
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Monday, 30 May 2016 14:26 </span>
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<span>Published in</span>
<a href="http://www.graphic.com.gh/features/opinion.html">Opinion</a>
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<p>The Oxford dictionary defines education as a process of
teaching, training and learning, especially in schools and
colleges/universities. This denotes the ability to acquire and improve
knowledge and skills through tutelage that is done in a systematic
manner over a period of time. </p>
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<p>The acquisition of knowledge depends on the ability of the acquirer
to do this in a way that is either quick or slow. This attribute may
rest on the Intelligent Quotient (IQ) of the recipient and may relate to
the environmental condition of the beneficiary. </p>
<p>Knowledge can be dichotomised by natural endowment or acquiring it
through study. Knowledge is, therefore, the pivotal power of humankind.</p>
<p><strong>Child education</strong></p>
<p>Education of the child, consequently, comes to play as the most
important tool for adequate nation building. Child education usually
serves as a strong cornerstone for the development of the child mentally
to be useful in society. Therefore, there must be no substitute for
child education no matter what. </p>
<p>The characteristics of child training that enables the child to grow
well educationally are mental, moral and physical training. As children
cannot concentrate on one thing for a long period, it is propitious to
tutor the child through play/ storytelling or else interlacing teaching
with music/singing that will refresh the child’s mind to concentrate
better on whatever he or she is being impacted on. </p>
<p>Once any of the above qualities is lacking, development of the child
becomes deplete and incomplete as all these attributes are intertwined.
For instance, a child who is interested in sports especially football
will grapple with geometry and trigonometry faster and better than the
child who has no interest because of the angles, circles,
diameters/radius etc. linked with the football field. </p>
<p>This scenario goes with other games and the interest in other
extramural activities such as music that involves calculation.
Extramural activities boost the ego and morale of the child and makes
him/her perform well educationally.</p>
<p><strong>The known to unknown</strong></p>
<p>It is propounded, also, that children must be tutored from known to
unknown that will make them assimilate lessons properly. Based on this,
local languages are used to commence tutoring the child in our basic
schools. I see no virtue in this philosophy as any child born anywhere
and introduced to learning in any language at any time will do well once
the approach is apposite. </p>
<p>For instance, I was born by Ewe parents at Larteh in Akwapim.
Therefore, my first contact of diction was Ewe. Due to the colonial
policy of teaching from the known to unknown for the first three years
of our education at that time, I was saddled with starting with Ewe at
home, then switched on to Akwapim Twi at school. </p>
<p>Larteh had a dialect that I needed to learn to be able to associate
well with my peers. By the time I was 10 years I had to migrate with my
mother to the Volta Region to start all over again with Ewe relating to
the wobbling language policy in schools then. </p>
<p>At this stage, I became confused and was frightened any time there
was a subject called language be it local or foreign. This is what
happens to children of my calibre. My gigabytes were full language wise,
so there was little room for important subjects such as
mathematics/science that is the logic of reason/knowledge. </p>
<p>For instance, we normally pronounce Tomato - “tomanto” and
pear-“payer” in the local languages. Switching on to spell or pronounce
these words and other similar ones correctly was a very daunting task
and nearly ended up my struggle for education. </p>
<p>Most of our English essays were marked; vernacular English with
copious red ink marks that discouraged most of my mates and consequently
ending their ambition for education. </p>
<p>This is the problem linked with teaching from known to unknown
relating to language as introduced to us by our colonial masters. </p>
<p>At my middle school years at Gbi Wegbe, Volta Region, the head
teacher in trying to upgrade our competence in English language drew an
ugly huge monkey that was worn on the chest of any student caught
speaking the vernacular. The last person that wore it for the day was
severely punished.</p>
<p><strong>Language</strong></p>
<p>Language is a means to communicate and it does not matter what
language one is introduced to begin with. If teaching from known to
unknown by using accustomed parlance is credible, then our cultural
practices must be taught first in our schools before any foreign
ideology is imposed. </p>
<p>English has assumed universal communication platform that has
clustered the world together with ease. Swahili was adopted in most
Eastern African States as lingua franca but did not survive and that
called for its reversal. </p>
<p>Africana was imposed on the Southern African States but with fiasco.
China is a big country and can survive without the outside world yet
English language is common there. What I try to expand is that language
does not matter that much in knowledge acquisition. </p>
<p>After all, private schools with lesser-trained teachers that do not
tow this language policy perform better than those of the public schools
that adopt this practice no matter what environmental parameters that
are used as contemplation. </p>
<p>Lackadaisical performance in public schools, in particular, hinges on
lack of adequate supervision/inspection, seriousness and respect for
teachers and education in general to encourage the downtrodden to pursue
it. We need inversion of the policy by introducing vernacular at a
later stage as our alphabets and numerals are derived from foreign ones.
No one will send his or her ward to private schools if the public ones
perform well. </p>
<p><strong>A broken system?</strong></p>
<p>Ghana’s education that was the envy/cynosure of Africa has dwindled
chaotically with majority of students in many of our institutions hardly
able to spell/pronounce words appropriately, do basic mathematics
correctly and being oblivious of geographical locations due to wrong
calculus in educational policy implementation over the years. </p>
<p>I listened to some officials from the Ghana Education Service (GES)
and the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) defending a
book written by an educationist that heads were created to carry loads
just in the measure of known to unknown. I thought they could add
defaecating in bushes/gutters/beaches or throwing rubbish
indiscriminately and noise making to their policy repertoire as that is
the practice in our society today that most children are accustomed to. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Writer’s email:<span id="cloak62207"><a href="mailto:ghansainvest@yahoo.com">ghansainvest@yahoo.com</a></span> </p></div></div> - See more at: <a href="http://www.graphic.com.gh/features/opinion/64708-is-our-educational-system-in-shambles.html#sthash.a8TWmpFj.dpuf">http://www.graphic.com.gh/features/opinion/64708-is-our-educational-system-in-shambles.html#sthash.a8TWmpFj.dpuf</a></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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