Respond To Challenges Posed By Four Year SHS Programme
Friday April 16, 2010
By Times Reporter
Private and public universities have been advised to discuss ways of responding to the challenges posed by the reversal of the three-year Senior High School (SHS) programme to improve educational standards.
Professor Nathaniel K. Pecku, Rector of the University College of Management Studies (UCOMS), who gave the advice, expressed doubt the capacity of the tertiary schools to handle the SHS graduates who would pass through the new system.
He stressed that it would require massive efforts to bring them up to the required standards to arrest the fallen standards of education.
He was speaking t the third matriculation UCOMS during which 407 students were admitted.
According to Prof. Pecku, the universities and other tertiary institutions have a problem.
“They have not yet responded to the initial four-year programme. Are they to revert to the previous three-year programme or do they sustain the four years which would extend the duration of university education?”
Prof. Pecku expressed doubt that the challenges that beleaguered the educational sector have been fully resolved for a smooth take-off of the proposed three-year SHS programme, stressing that the issue needed proper discussion.
He said tertiary education should focus on running employment programmes aimed at organizing regular training for the youth and students to set up their own businesses.
“The universities and other tertiary institutions, which educate the cream of the country’s youth, must ensure that their products are patriotic and self-reliant.
“They need to be imbued with the attitude of residing in Ghana to develop the country,” he said.
The vice president of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana, Mrs Shola Safo-Duodu, advised the students to be architects of their future by applying themselves to learning employable skills that would enable them survive and compete in the business world.
The vice president of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana, Mrs Shola Safo-Duodu, advised the students to be architects of their future by applying themselves to learning employable skills that would enable them survive and compete in the business world.
“Employers are looking out for job seekers who can add value to their enterprises,” she said, adding that the country could compete with other industrialized nations if it had the right future workforce with the right attitude and skills.
Mrs Safo-Duodo said “the present day graduate or job seeker must be equipped to effectively use time management as a tool to run an organisation and to solve challenges in the industrial world.” She called on managements of private educational institutions to fashion out curriculum that would bring the best in the youth for national development.
She reminded the students of the dangers ahead that could sidetrack them, stressing those great men and leaders in the world had to deny themselves certain luxuries that had the potential to retard their academic pursuit.
“From your mates, there some who may see this as freedom to do what they had been restricted to do in the past. This may include staying deep into the night, drinking alcohol, using drugs and indecent dressing.
“These are recipe for disaster and those who indulge in them are those who attempt to ass examinations by cheating,” she stressed.
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Education
Comments
I THINK THE FOUR YEAR PROGRAMME SHOULD BE BROUGHT BACK TO THREE SINCE THERE ARE NO INFRAUSTRACTURAL BLOCKS AND DORMITORIES FOR THE FORM ONE STUDENTS WHO WILL COME IN.WITH THE THREE WE ARE EVEN SUFFERING.HOW MUCH MORE FOUR.THE HEAD OF SCHOOLS SHOULD ACT FAST.