With the poor WASSCE 2016 results rekindling the debate over whether the erstwhile four year high school system was better than the current three, the Vice President of the National Association of Graduate teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Karbonu says such arguments are baseless.
“We are beginning the issue on this parochial argument of four years, three years. It is totally a misplaced argument,” The NAGRAT Vice President stated on The Big Issue.
Mr. Karbonu instead indicated that the problem Ghana’s education system is confronted with stemmed “from the basic school. The foundation is absolutely faulty.”
“If somebody does not get the proper knowledge in English language from the basic level, you can even move to the PHD level, when you talk, there will be deficiencies in your presentation,” he explained.
Mr. Karbonu also bemoaned the fact the discussion had also been spliced with political rhetoric. According to him, “The statistics that we have is totally different from the tangent that we have discussed this issue and once again, we have also jaundiced this discussion with parochial political interests.”
Results have always been bad
Mr. Karbonu questioned the recent debate over the recent WASSCE results as superficial as he noted that the results in external examination had always been “abysmal”.
Stretching back to the days of the O-level and A-level, “we have always performed abysmally at our school set level,” he maintained.
“So for results to be released in a particular year and for people to begin talking about it as if Armageddon is all of a sudden befalling us has jaundiced the discussion.”
Furthermore “the performance in core subjects such as science, English language and mathematics have always been abysmal,” Mr. Karbonu stated, and this year’s WASSCE results would appear to back that.
A total of 274,262 candidates participated in the 2016 examinations and according to WAEC, a total of 125,065 students obtained A1 to C6 in English Language, which is 53.19%, 59,725 (25.40%) obtained D7-E8 whilst 46,595 (19.82%) had F9.
For Mathematics, 77,108 (32.83%) obtained A1-C6; 65,007 (27.68%) obtained D7-E8 whilst 89,477 (38.10%) had F9 and about 113,933 students obtained A1-C6 in Integrated Science which is 48.48%, 75,938 (32.32%) obtained D7-E8 whilst 42,519 (18.09%) had F9.
“As a nation, we always talk about the fact that we need to revisit our attitude towards these core subjects; core math, English language and the science. Our performance has always been below par.” Mr. Karbonu stated.
Calls for return to 4-yr SHS needless – Mahama
Amid calls for a return to the four-year Senior High School system following the release of the recent West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results, President John Dramani Mahama has jumped to the defense of the current system.
According to him, the “call for a return to 4yr SHS is uncalled for” as statistics show that students have performed better in the 3-year system.
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