COMPLETION WITHOUT NEEDED SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE?
In the mid-2000s, sixteen weeks was slated for a semester to smoothen the flow of teaching and learning at the tertiary level of education. In that era, teachers could cover a syllabus as planned for a semester.
During those times, students were exposed to a bit more of skills, theories, practicals and fieldwork, until the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic which led to the closure of schools.
Students spent about ten months at home without schooling until early 2021 when the virtual system of teaching and learning became common and active. At that time, students and teachers were able to interact via zoom, google meet and others.
The virtual system of teaching and learning also brought its challenges like the difficulty in teaching and learning in courses like broadcast news writing, statistics, visual communication, photojournalism and print news writing.
The virtual system of teaching and learning could not expose students to the practical part of the courses.
Along the line, the pandemic was reported to be mild in the country, there was a blend of the face-to-face and virtual system of learning, but in that era, the sixteen weeks of teaching and learning was reduced to nine weeks. Issues of strike actions from teachers also rested teaching and learning along the line.
The impact of the pandemic, strike actions and the nine weeks of teaching and learning has not only harmed students and teachers but also guardians, parents and society at large.
In recent times, teachers keep lamenting how compressed the nine weeks is, which does not enable them to achieve a goal as planned. Students, on the other hand, do not get to be exposed to the practical aspects of what is being taught.
The challenge of getting acquainted with the Learning Management System (LMS). Some students are not able to graduate due to issues associated with the various learning systems, likewise, some students have not been able to graduate because of the challenges the virtual system brought about.
Students again, suffer employment issues because they do not have the needed skills for the job opportunities. Meanwhile, guardians, parents and even students who fend for themselves face the challenge of gathering huge sums of money for school fees within a month sometimes in two weeks.
Unlike previous times when vacations were lengthy enough and parents had two to three months to gather an amount which is even less than that of what they are paying now. Deferment becomes and withdrawal becomes an option for students who are not able to settle the payment.
Society and Ghana at large bear the consequences of this change. The labour force, as part of the factors of production, now does not have the needed skills to improve productivity and that affects the economy at large.
In most sectors of the economy, employers spend resources to provide training for employees on skills that they could have acquired during their days in school. Meanwhile, those resources could be used for other projects.
The rationale behind this change in the curriculum is to enable fast completion, but the question stands again, what is completion without the needed skills and knowledge? It is about time we paid attention to this as Ghanaians.
JULIET KOOMSON
GIJ
