The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II says this year’s W.A.S.S.C.E. results of senior high school students in the country is an indication that the various investments in education are not working.
According to the monarch, there is no way one can describe the recently released results of senior high students as impressive.
Per this year’s results, only 28 percent of the students obtained grades A1 to C6 in six of their subjects including Maths and English.
“Indeed, all our statistics show that education consumes the largest chunk of the national budget. And yet, results of our examinations such as the W.A.S.S.C.E. results just released leave me wondering whether we are getting real value for the huge investment and effort in education. However one looks at it, a 50% failure rate is not and should not be acceptable to the nation” the king told the gathering at the 19th Ghana Journalist Awards in Accra on Saturday.
He believes the nation stands to lose if the frequent stalemate between the government and teachers is not addressed immediately.
“We can no longer ignore the turmoil in the education landscape with teachers and government and employers daggers drawn almost as a matter of routine. Clearly, the turmoil is having an adverse effect. And clearly, the victims are our children” he noted.
The Asantehene also warned politicians to desist from playing politics with education.
“In the short time that I have been Asantehene, the education system has changed three times, from three years of senior high school to four years of senior high school and back to three years of senior high school. In fact, if you calculate the delays in their initial enrolment because of the clash of pupils from the four-year period, and the time lost to them through teachers strife, the present crop of pupils only had two and a half years to cover curriculum which had been covered over four years previously.
“Our children are the victims today. But in the long run, it is the nation that will suffer. For if we fail to lay the right foundation for our children, we cannot hope to raise the skilled manpower, the men and women with the brain power to lift the national economy from the depths to which we are stuck” he stated.
Both RawGist and I have been trying to sound the alarm but almost none want to listen or help.
“The effects of noise pollution on cognitive task performance have been well-studied. Noise pollution impairs task performance at school and at work, increases errors, and decreases motivation. Reading attention, problem solving, and memory are most strongly affected by noise”.
The noise pollution in Ghana is at insane levels and it is destroying people’s lives, the future of children and the future of Ghana itself.
I believe noise has been a significant factor in the poor results reported in the above article.
I have taken the following few excerpts from Medscape.com which among other noise dangers speaks about the health impacts of noise on children. Medscape is an online reference service for the medical profession.
Medscape declares:
“The WHO (World Health Organisation) has documented seven categories of adverse health effects of noise pollution on humans. Much of the following comes from the WHO Guideline on Community Noise………..
Children are at risk as well. Children who live in noisy environments have been shown to have elevated blood pressures and elevated levels of stress-induced hormones.
The effects of noise pollution on cognitive task performance have been well-studied. Noise pollution impairs task performance at school and at work, increases errors, and decreases motivation. Reading attention, problem solving, and memory are most strongly affected by noise. Two types of memory deficits have been identified under experimental conditions: recall of subject content and recall of incidental details. Both are adversely influenced by noise. Deficits in performance can lead to errors and accidents, both of which have health and economic consequences.
Cognitive and language development and reading achievement are diminished in noisy homes, even though the children’s schools may be no noisier than average. Cognitive development is impaired when homes or schools are near sources of noise such as highways and airports. Noise affects learning, reading, problem solving, motivation, school performance, and social and emotional development. These findings suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the effects of noise on the ability of children to learn and on the nature of the learning environment, both in school and at home. Moreover, there is concern that high and continuous environmental noise may contribute to feelings of helplessness in children.
Noise produces negative after-effects on performance, particularly in children. It appears that the longer the exposure, the greater the effect. Children from noisy areas have been found to have heightened sympathetic arousal indicated by increased levels of stress-related hormones and elevated resting blood pressure. These changes were larger in children with lower academic achievement. As a whole, these findings suggest that schools and daycare centers should be located in areas that are as noise-free as possible.
Children, the elderly, and those with underlying depression may be particularly vulnerable to these effects because they may lack adequate coping mechanisms. Children in noisy environments find the noise annoying and report a diminished quality of life”.