'Restructure educational system to develop individual’s holistic potential'
A lecturer at the Department of Distance Education of the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Olivia A.T.F. Kwapong, has stressed the need to restructure the country’s educational system to enforce the philosophy of developing the individual’s holistic potential plus the arts in the teaching and learning approach.
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Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the Victory Presbyterian School at Adentan, Accra, Professor Kwapong said the education system was “too examination- centred”, focusing only on the academic performance of the children to the neglect of the development of other talents, and that was not helping them utilise their full potential.
“The educational system is too examination-centred. It is too rigid. It is sort of cut in stone and it is not flexible. Our concern is Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). So we sleep with BECE, we wake up with BECE. We are concerned with how they can get the 10 ones and all those things. And, therefore, we compromise on the other side where most of these students can unleash their potential and make the best out of themselves.
“We have boxed them into one jacket - core and electives. Make your ‘As’ and then you can get a good senior high school and a good university and then you can make the best class. Indeed, we are killing them. We are not training them well,” she said.
The ceremony, held on the theme, “Fruitfulness in education – The role of the stakeholders”, was used to reward hard-working children, teachers and staff of the school, with Master Prince Okrah receiving the Overall Best Student Award in the JHS category.
Importance of co-curricular activities
She said co-curricular activities such as weaving, arts and craft, drama, singing and drawing, which some of the children were good at are relegated to the background because “they are not examinable; they don’t come towards BECE and or West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE). It is because we don’t prioritise them and therefore we are not building their capacity as individuals and so most of them are missing out.”
Prof. Kwapong said it was therefore, wrong to say that the child had failed in the BECE or WASSCE, stressing that it was not the child who had failed; it was rather the school that had failed the children because they had not been given what they desired, and described the practice as a disappointment.
Holistic development
“We need to enforce the philosophy of developing the holistic individual plus the arts in our teaching and learning approach,” she said. She attributed the graduate unemployment in the country to the fact that the country was training graduates to write applications for jobs instead of preparing them to employ themselves.
Professor Kwapong blamed parents for “worshipping their children”, saying that being a good parent did not mean doing all the work including what their children could do in their small way to develop their skills.
She expressed frustration over the failed junior high school system, saying the core essence of providing some skills to the children through the workshops had been scrapped . “We are not encouraging the children to build with their hands,” she said.
School’s growth and performance
The Director of the school, Mr Herdibert Nsaidoo-Storph, in a report , said from a humble beginning with 26 pupils in October 1995, the school could now boast a population of 1,300 and attributed it to the grace of God, discipline, as well as the remarkable performance of the school in the BECE over the years.
He said almost all the candidates the school presented for the BECE had secured their first choice senior high schools, “placing the school at a good position to win the Overall Best Student in both the Adentan Municipality and the Greater Accra Region again.”
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