ALL HANDS ON DECK

Friday February 19, 2010
By .

IT is a fact that lack of basic infrastructure in the education sector has contributed immensely to the fallen standard of education in the country.

The fact that some basic schools in parts of the country continue to score zero per cent in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) annually goes to confirm that not all is well on the education front.

It is a shame that in this 21st century, there are certain parts of the country where pupils attend classes under trees while others carry chairs from home to school to sit on them.

There are schools where there is one teacher handling all subjects in all the classes! In the midst of this dismal picture, there are others who have abundance of their needs, including fully equipped science laboratories.

Students from the two diametrically opposed schools are supposed to take the same examination after which the authorities have the courage to publish a League Table!

The Times therefore, sees the initiative by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to launch a GH¢ 6million Education Endowment Fund to provide infrastructure for all basic schools in the metropolis as laudable and hopes other Metropolitan and District Assemblies will follow suit.

We hope and pray that the fund will get the needed response from individuals, philanthropists, religious organizations and financial institutions within the metropolis to enable the AMA to provide the basic infrastructure to facilitate teaching and learning in order to improve the quality of education among the youth.

The lack of infrastructure, especially classroom accommodation, gave birth to the current shift system in public schools.

This system has badly affected the quality of teaching since only four hours are spent on school work daily instead of the eight hours required for meaningful instruction.

The system does not also give room for extra curricula activities such as games, theatre arts, science, laboratory and technology classes as well as physical education.

To abolish the system completely as envisaged by the AMA, the basic infrastructure like school pavilions need to be provided to cater for the over 71,000 children.

We recall that last week, the headmistress of St Mary’s Girls’ Senior High School in Accra warned of an academic catastrophe if the government did not act quickly to provide classrooms for the remaining three years of the four-year session of the Senior High School Programme.

This reinforces the point that all is not well with the education sector in terms of accommodation and other logistics.

Policy makers have paid lip-service to education in the past and the result is that the foundation of the sector has been seriously weakened.

The Times urges all Ghanaians with the means to contribute their quota towards raising the standard of education in the country.

No country can achieve much with poor quality education.

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