By Gabriel Obodai Torgbor-Ashong,
Student, Ghana Institute of Journalism
In recent times, fellow youngsters I have seen in a while have resurfaced from their ‘sojourned lands.’ Almost all of them now have new looks, with the ladies in different shades of hairstyle.
Their arrival was heralded with jubilation and powdering. That certainly reminded me of those days, when some of us were very young.
Their presence indicated the end of this year’s West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for senior high school (SHS) and the junior high school (JHS) pupils, respectively.
After all was said and done, reflections started setting in: Which worthwhile activity could these just graduated pupils engage in to avoid idleness within the next three or so months while they await their results?
Usually, it doesn’t take long after such examinations to see a number of the females getting pregnant and some of the guys indulging in certain acts undeserving of them.
More often than not, that becomes the end of the road for those youngsters.
Unfortunately, some SHSs and JHSs do not have programmes in place to properly prepare the minds of pupils for the life they would be embracing right after school.
In most schools I have visited, the Guidance and Counselling Units are either dormant or non-existent. Some pupils, therefore, complete school without any clear vision of what exactly to do whilst awaiting results, or the right course to pursue at either the secondary or tertiary levels.
Even in some of the schools where Guidance and Counselling Units exist, one can be sure of hearing the concerns shared with the counsellors on the lips of friends and probably getting ridiculed in addition.
This privacy and confidentiality lacuna make pupils shy away from those units.
Thanks to our theory-based curricula too pupils who read courses such as General Arts, Science and Business often complete without any requisite skills.
This would certainly make it difficult for most of our latest graduates to secure better part-time jobs in the months ahead.
The current crop of JHS/SHS leavers ought to find means of making judicious use of the months ahead.
Some of them could enroll in short courses to learn international languages such as French or basic secretarial and computing skills.
That could in the future be an added advantage and position them well for better employment.
As the graduates will be pondering and subsequently deciding on which courses to read at the next stage of their education, parents ought to guide and not impose any course on them.
The final decision, (as stipulated in section 2 of the Children’s Act 560), should be in the best interest of the child decision not necessarily of the parents’ preference or that of the children, but what will ultimately yield to the benefit of those children.
My Turn/The Mirror/Ghana
