An educationist, Professor Jerome S. Djangmah, has declared the Junior High School (JHS) system which was introduced in 1974 and fully implemented in 1986, as the weakest link in Ghana’s educational system.
It was implemented alongside the Senior High School (SHS) system.
Professor Djangma, speaking as a guest on the ‘Time with the legend,’ a segment on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday, said the JHS and SHS systems which replaced the ‘O and A-Level education system, have not fully achieved their objectives.
The academician, who once served as the Chairman of the West African Examinations Council, (WAEC) and a Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, (GES) said, although there have been some improvements since the transformation, quality at the Junior High School level in particular remains the weakest link.
Proposing some solutions to improve that level of education, he said it is time for more university graduates to teach at the JHS level.
According to him, quality at the JHS level will automatically reflect at the SHS to produce better students for the tertiary level.
“… It is the weakest link in the sense that, it should been a programme being run by university graduates because in the past, some of the good schools had university graduates from form one all the way to form five. The JHS started with teacher trainees and not university graduates. By now, we should have university graduates teaching in the JHS. If we are able to do that, I think the standard will improve. At the moment in the top schools, we will say that there isn’t too much problems but majority of the schools are not doing well as they should.”
Commenting on the discrepancy in the performance between the public and private schools in rural and urban centers, Professor Djangma explained that the trend is merely a reflection of the social and economic diversity in the country.
“It’s a reflection of social and economic diversity because at the private school you pay for it. And you know that majority of Ghanaians are in the public school system where supervision, books and others are a problem and majority of the interventions that have been rolled out for education such as free lunch for selected schools are there to increase access but they are yet to have an effect on quality.”
Achieving quality education
Professor Djangma said if quality education is to be achieved, teachers’ capacity ought to improved, particularly at the basic level.
“Free education is a good thing but it is also equally important that quality must improve because if you don’t have quality, it simply means you even prolong the educational system and you still have problems of inadequacy, illiteracy, and numeracy amongst others. I am looking forward to the district assemblies; we should be able to strengthen education at the district assembly level where they can look after teachers much better, improve their conditions of service, sponsor them to upgrade and so on.”
Click below to listen to Prof. Djangmah:
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana