The admission crises we saw coming our way
Arku Jasmine
Features
The admission of students into our public universities this academic year is a crisis that was waiting for us. We all knew about it, but perhaps, not its impact.
Like an accident waiting to happen, our educational experts probably saw the chaos coming some four years ago when midstream, we decided to abandon a seven- year secondary education system for a six-year one. So, like a driver at top speed unmindful of a stationary vehicle ahead of him, fatality is always inevitable.
Today, we are being told that the public universities are faced with admission crisis. Did we look beyond the future of as many as 409,759 candidates who were going to be products of the two streams of SHS? Did anyone analyse their chances for further education vis-a-vis the vacancies available in our public tertiary institutions?
So why would we not run into crisis if we did not adequately prepare for the future of the two streams of students so created.
Now, parents are agonising needlessly, applicants are having sleepless nights and the public universities have been put under extra pressure.
It is heartbreaking to read a Daily Graphic report that this academic year, we have a looming trouble on our hands. According to the story published on October 2, 2013, out of the over 92,500 applicants from the two streams of senior high school graduates seeking admission to three of our public universities, more than half of them were unsuccessful.
The institutions, we are told, are the University of Ghana, Legon, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi and the University of Health and Allied Science.
The situation is likely to compound when the figures from the other public universities are released.
With this admission crisis, it looks like the future of over 46,000 applicants whose hopes of pursuing a future dear to their hearts might never become a reality.
This is because their future has been jeopardised by some technocrats. These “stranded” applicants may not be able to apply for admission into a private university because not all the courses are being offered at our existing private universities. Typical examples are the various courses in the Sciences. What is their future?
It is not only heartbreaking but the turn of events is also worrying in that we seem not to be too sure of what is the best for our senior high school system. Once upon a time, we were told that the six years of secondary education was not yielding the best results for our country. Indeed, from the period we switched over from the seven years of O and A Level system, we have seen a higher drift of students going abroad in search of a much better tertiary education.
In the process, we currently seem to have lost and continue to lose a generation of Ghanaians who are going to eventually settle in other countries, contributing their energies to building those economies.
In their attempt to try and correct the six-year system, a group of educational experts proposed a seven-year tenure that was not only going to mature our students but was also going to crystallise knowledge and build sound practical and academic base for tertiary education and beyond. We barely took off with the seven-year programme when another group of experts changed things around for us two years into the new seven-year secondary education system.
So what is the way out of this topsy-turvy situation which has led to the crisis we are faced with this academic year? I normally do not like apportioning blame but one cannot help highlighting the slippery slopes our politicians continue to lead us to and the needless confusion they sometimes end up bringing into our lives.
Really, but for political expediency, what was the rush in changing the secondary school duration from seven to six years when we had not had the benefit of assessing the pros and cons of the seven years.
In 2009, the debate on the way forward with our SHS education took a partisan twist and the arguments for a three-year tenure as against a four-year system was reduced to politicking. We seemed not to have thought deeply beyond what was to happen after the three years of SHS.
Otherwise, today, we would not be talking about a crisis situation in our admissions system.
What is happening should be a good lesson to us as we move foward. Education and health are crucial to our nation’s development and so we should try and leave out the politics which could cloud national progress.
We are all aware of great world inventions that have come about not at the first attempt but rather after several attempts.
Some mistakes of inventors have turned out to be useful ventures today, a good example being the invention of post-it notes which have become necessary office stationery and found on the desk of every executive.
Going forward, we should learn from our mistakes. The assessment carried into the three-year SHS that has brought us this far should be important lessons. The pros should guide us as we seek to correct the cons in order to shape a better secondary school system for Ghana’s sake.
By Vicky Wireko/Daily Graphic/Ghana
Like an accident waiting to happen, our educational experts probably saw the chaos coming some four years ago when midstream, we decided to abandon a seven- year secondary education system for a six-year one. So, like a driver at top speed unmindful of a stationary vehicle ahead of him, fatality is always inevitable.
Today, we are being told that the public universities are faced with admission crisis. Did we look beyond the future of as many as 409,759 candidates who were going to be products of the two streams of SHS? Did anyone analyse their chances for further education vis-a-vis the vacancies available in our public tertiary institutions?
So why would we not run into crisis if we did not adequately prepare for the future of the two streams of students so created.
Now, parents are agonising needlessly, applicants are having sleepless nights and the public universities have been put under extra pressure.
It is heartbreaking to read a Daily Graphic report that this academic year, we have a looming trouble on our hands. According to the story published on October 2, 2013, out of the over 92,500 applicants from the two streams of senior high school graduates seeking admission to three of our public universities, more than half of them were unsuccessful.
The institutions, we are told, are the University of Ghana, Legon, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi and the University of Health and Allied Science.
The situation is likely to compound when the figures from the other public universities are released.
With this admission crisis, it looks like the future of over 46,000 applicants whose hopes of pursuing a future dear to their hearts might never become a reality.
This is because their future has been jeopardised by some technocrats. These “stranded” applicants may not be able to apply for admission into a private university because not all the courses are being offered at our existing private universities. Typical examples are the various courses in the Sciences. What is their future?
It is not only heartbreaking but the turn of events is also worrying in that we seem not to be too sure of what is the best for our senior high school system. Once upon a time, we were told that the six years of secondary education was not yielding the best results for our country. Indeed, from the period we switched over from the seven years of O and A Level system, we have seen a higher drift of students going abroad in search of a much better tertiary education.
In the process, we currently seem to have lost and continue to lose a generation of Ghanaians who are going to eventually settle in other countries, contributing their energies to building those economies.
In their attempt to try and correct the six-year system, a group of educational experts proposed a seven-year tenure that was not only going to mature our students but was also going to crystallise knowledge and build sound practical and academic base for tertiary education and beyond. We barely took off with the seven-year programme when another group of experts changed things around for us two years into the new seven-year secondary education system.
So what is the way out of this topsy-turvy situation which has led to the crisis we are faced with this academic year? I normally do not like apportioning blame but one cannot help highlighting the slippery slopes our politicians continue to lead us to and the needless confusion they sometimes end up bringing into our lives.
Really, but for political expediency, what was the rush in changing the secondary school duration from seven to six years when we had not had the benefit of assessing the pros and cons of the seven years.
In 2009, the debate on the way forward with our SHS education took a partisan twist and the arguments for a three-year tenure as against a four-year system was reduced to politicking. We seemed not to have thought deeply beyond what was to happen after the three years of SHS.
Otherwise, today, we would not be talking about a crisis situation in our admissions system.
What is happening should be a good lesson to us as we move foward. Education and health are crucial to our nation’s development and so we should try and leave out the politics which could cloud national progress.
We are all aware of great world inventions that have come about not at the first attempt but rather after several attempts.
Some mistakes of inventors have turned out to be useful ventures today, a good example being the invention of post-it notes which have become necessary office stationery and found on the desk of every executive.
Going forward, we should learn from our mistakes. The assessment carried into the three-year SHS that has brought us this far should be important lessons. The pros should guide us as we seek to correct the cons in order to shape a better secondary school system for Ghana’s sake.
By Vicky Wireko/Daily Graphic/Ghana
