The Upper East Regional Director of Education, Emmanuel Zumakpe, has observed that Ghana’s desire to develop technologically will not materialize if the country’s educational direction continues to be towards more theory and less practical.
According to him, Ghana has a lot of half-baked graduates in various professional fields,because, while they were in school, the educational system introduced them to and examined them mostly on the theoretical aspect of their professions with very little practical.
He was not surprised that many graduates from various tertiary institutions in the country are not able to fit into the available job placements, until employers spend more time and money to train them to be able to play the roles expected of them as professionals.
Mr. Zumakpe was speaking in an interview on how the country could make the study of Science and Technology more effective and relevant to the technological development of the country.
The Regional Director of Education was not happy that the country’s human resource base, particularly in the area of Science and Technology, is confronted with a large number of half-baked graduates who know the theoretical aspect of their professions and very little of the practical and so “despite their presence nothing serious happens.”
Mr. Zumakpe has reiterated the need for well equipped Science and Technology Laboratories in second cycle schools across the country, as well as tertiary institutions to promote effective and relevant Science and Technology Education.
“Science and Technology are real things and teachers must be knowledgeable in both theoretical and practical sides of the subject, and must be committed to the teaching of science the right way, to help turn the situation around,” Mr. Zumakpe charged.
He believes that if successive governments would improve the current status of the existing science laboratories in some senior high schools and add more, and also equip those in the tertiary institutions, the country would be taking bold steps towards its technological development.
He noted that the introduction of the junior secondary school (now senior high school) concept, which emphasized the provision of technical workshops, was the beginning of Ghana’s march towards an effective practical and theoretical education, but successive governments did not see the need for it and so could not sustain it.
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