Not just free, but quality education

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THE current democratic journey of Ghana began with the need to have a constitutional democracy, an elected Executive and a Legislature made up of the representatives of the people, through Universal Adult Suffrage to include more Ghanaians in the electoral exercise.

During that period, and even from the days of independence, the economy has been a key issue on the agenda of all elections.? It has been always important to the people, and candidates have played on and hyped different aspects of it for their campaign messages.

HOWEVER, in the run-up to the 2012 elections the focus has shifted to Education and politicians appear to be talking less about the economy. Almost all the parties are promising to provide free education in one form or the other.

WHILE the NDC is calling for an expansion of access before making it free, the NPP has as its major campaign message the issue of making Senior High School (SHS) free for all Ghanaian children. The Progressive People?s Party (PPP) has likewise called for a free and continuous education, with an emphasis on making it compulsory for all school children; they even intimate the establishment of an education policy to enforce the compulsory element.

THE lack of raw figures pushed think tank, IMANI Ghana, to call on the parties to publish the cost of the free education, which cost some of them have fumbled with. In the case of the NPP, their opponents have used that as a basis to state that they cannot provide the free education they are talking about.

THOUGH Today shares in the dreams of these political parties, because many of our children are still left out of school, what we hope the parties would also be talking about is quality education which can help reduce the number of educated-illiterates in society.

WE are hereby calling on Ghanaian politicians to also furnish the electorates with what they intend to do to improve the quality of education, and help eradicate the low passing rate of Ghanaian students.

WE are simply not happy with figures?from the West African Examinations Council?which show that?the pass-rate of students who sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination has been on a constant downward decline since 2009. How can only 574, 688 of a total number of 1,121,817 students who sat for the BECE in the past three years achieve the pass mark.? And how can we say we are progressing when less than half of those who sit for WASSCE pass?

WE believe the time is up for the presidential candidates to tell the nation the cost of improving quality from the primary to the tertiary level. This cost must include how the nation can link its education to the job market as a means of eradicating graduate unemployment.

WE must also create curricula that also ensure students graduating from our schools are innovative and can create their own jobs, make it grow and also employ someone else.

IN the absence of all these, it is the considered opinion of we on Today that no politician must ever think of free education.? We need both quantity passing through the education system, but they must also come out as qualitative human resources that could help Ghana develop.?

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