Stakeholder engagement has been missing in the entire Free Senior High School education policy for the past seven years under the New Patriotic Party. Though Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior Secondary (CHASS) inputs are always raised on the challenges and topical issues the government is pursuing in toying with the policy is leading to low quality of teaching and learning in Senior High schools.
Teachers and Headmasters are very crucial in the national development of the national education policy of the country. Currently, the government has centralized all the policies from the headquarters which is affecting the smooth running of the FSHS curriculum.
Dr. Juliouse Kattah, Fellow Chartered Economist (FCE) Economist Adviser said this on Adekyee Mu Nsem’s morning show on Ahotor 92.3 FM hosted by Nana Dogbey in Accra.
Headmasters are just been considered as staff and not managers of the school and the ad-hoc measures and intimidation from the Ghana Education Service are reality derailing the best input from the headmasters which is affecting teaching and learning.
Though the Ghana Education Service (GES) has established a committee to investigate head teachers who have been interdicted for allegedly selling unauthorized items to first-year senior high school students, the channels of using social media for this action are unfounded and baseless.
He is of the view that structural discipline is one of the institutional deficits affecting all our public institutions, and this has affected day to day management of the Ghana education service.
The Leader of Menzgold Customer Fred Forson who also speaks on the platform said it is long overdue for the government and the major stakeholders to carry self-introspection to review the FSHS policy to address all these teething problems affecting the smooth running of the school. He opined that it looks as if for the past seven years it looks as if the policy is still being experimented with.
He reiterated that looking at the challenges confronting the FSHS education policy, he can conclude that the politicians are just playing with the policy.
He said there is a need for the government to look at the key performance index in the entire FSHS to review the policy to correct the key challenges the program has faced to make the education system attend to quality teaching and learning.
AYM Kukah. E:mail:kukahalexander7@gmail.com
