Head of the Academic Quality Monitoring and Evaluation of the Ghana Communication Technology University, Yaa Essah Armah has indicated that a lot of Ghana’s educational policies are politically motivated, making it quite impossible for heads of various institutions to publicly speak out against their disadvantages.
According to her, any headteacher who criticizes a government policy falls out of the good graces of the government in power, and that hinders development.
Speaking in an interview on the Happy Morning Show hosted by Samuel Eshun and aired on e.TV Ghana and Happy98.9FM, Yaa Essah Armah indicated, “If a head teacher criticizes an educational policy of the government in power, they are victimized but that should not be the case.”
She believes the government of Ghana and the Ministry of Education must consider and encourage constructive feedback from the head teachers who are on the ground, and are well aware of the challenges faced by the schools. “The authorities need to know that criticism is not condemnation but more about course correction. We need to have an open door policy where the heads of institutions can go to the Minister of Education and offer their critique without any problem.”
The academic describes the free SHS Policy as a sound one but admits it has its limitations, and argues the heads of these schools will do what is best for students under their care.
Editor of the Informer Newspaper, Andy Kankam has also urged teachers to publicly express problems they encounter with the free Senior High School policy rather than suffer silently.
He believes the policy is a great one which has resolved the problem of education inaccessibility to many and removed the burden of financial limitations. “We went to school with brilliant chaps who couldn’t continue because they had no money to pay for fees. The decision by the Akufo-Addo government to make SHS free was welcomed but if there are problems associated with it then, we need to speak about it and revise it.”
According to him, it is expected for every policy to have challenges but how to handle these challenges is the most important thing. “We always receive reports of these challenges daily but what is being done about it? If teachers keep silent over these problems, how can we solve them? Teachers need to speak out because we are in a democratic country and not fear what will be done them.
SHS enrolment has almost doubled from 393,995 in 2007/08 to 787,861 in 2015/16 academic year. This notwithstanding, large number of students continue to be denied of secondary education.
To reverse this trend, the Akufo-Addo government implemented the Free SHS policy. This policy was hailed upon its introduction but just like any good policy, it has its challenges.
Among the challenges confronting the free SHS programme are; lack of accommodation facilities resulting in students sleeping on the floor, congestion in classrooms, inconvenience relating to erratic schedules for the double-track system, poor quality of food served to students, little attention to end of semester examinations and minimal contact hours.
