[ 2017-01-25 ]

K.B Asante says teaching methods under the three-year system should be revised

Keep 3-year SHS - K.B. Asante
There is nothing wrong with the three-year senior
high school system but the teaching methods should
be reconsidered for effective learning, retired
diplomat K.B. Asante has said.

President Nana Akufo-Addo has not taken any
decision yet to reverse the three-year system to a
four-year one, but the debate has resurfaced
following the recent change in government.

The four-year SHS system was implemented during
the John Agyekum Kufuor-led administration but was
reversed by the late Professor John Evans Atta
Mills when the National Democratic Congress (NDC)
government succeeded Mr Kufuor’s.

Contributing to the discussion on the Executive
breakfast Show on Class91.3FM on Wednesday January
25, Mr Asante said the problem with Ghana’s
education was not one with the number of years.

“If our teaching is bad and people are not doing
well, we should tackle that question. There is
nothing wrong with the three years,” he told
show host Moro Awudu.

“If we look into history, our Gold Coasters used
to finish elementary school at 17 years and so on
and we thought that this was bad so we tried to
reduce it. At Achimota [School], it was a major
experiment. We tried to reduce the number of years
spent in the secondary school. We tried to get
people what we call double promotion and jumped
them in classes, … over the years we have our
own students taking what we called O’ Levels at
14 years and so on, which is similar to what
happens in Britain and so on. With the new system,
if we are not producing competent people who are
good enough for the O’ Levels, we are to look at
our teaching methods; it is not the duration.

“Of course you can let them sit here for 10
years and so on and they will produce exactly what
they are doing now. So, please let us find out why
standards are falling and so on and it’s not the
syllabus. There is no syllabus in heaven you have
to complete before you are educated. But we can
look at the syllabus, what…we make them learn
and we will find out that even that can be
modified so that…we learn to learn at school and
not just to pass our exams and go and sleep.
Let’s look at the fundamentals, not the
years.”

Source - classfmonline.com

... go Back