Educareguide is examining the issue of “Indiscipline In 2020 WASSCE Examination – Riots, Attacks, Etc.”.
The question is “what has accounted for the unprecedented riots and attacks on teachers, wassce invigilators, supervisors and inspected, in various schools across Ghana?”
Let’s bring our minds to the two recent incidence that are happening, in Ghana regarding the ongoing 2020 WASSCE exams. We have summarized two of these incidences below.
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Incidence of Indiscipline In 2020 WASSCE Examination
students of Bright Senior High School at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region attacked officials of the West African Examination Council (WAEC).
The WAEC Officials were supervising the ongoing WASSCE examination on Thursday 6th August, 2020.
On Monday, 3rd August, 2020, final year students of the Tweneboa Kodua Senior High School in the Ashanti Region rioted.
As a result, the riot resulted in the destruction of property, during the writing of the WASSCE Integrated Science paper.
As a critical educational observer, Educareguide has examined this phenomena and has arrived at certain facts and conclusion. Lets look some brief background below.
Brief Background
Its a fact that such incidence do not just spring up in students behavior. Indeed, there is always by both immediate course and indirect causes which triggers student anger .
In life, there is always a direct relationship between cause and effect.
In as much as we cannot condone the action of a student who gets up, take a gun and shoots his/her colleagues, we should carefully examine the underlying cause of that behaviour.
I believe you are getting the direction I’m drifting towards. Lets examine some historical and sociological background.
Historical And Sociological Background
If you carefully look at Ghana’s educational history, you would realize that in the past, only students who qualify and are willing to enter Senior High Schools were dully given the opportunity to do so.
What are my saying? Indeed it is true that every nation needs a well educated population in order to stay competitive and relevant in the modern globalize world.
Nevertheless, lets as ourselves that, what constitutes education, and who needs what kind of education?
Just quiet recently in Ghana, the cut off point for admission into Senior High School was from Aggregate 6 to Aggregate 30.
Unlike the perception of many that the rest of BECE students who obtained above aggregate 30 were failures, its never true.
Furthermore, Those who obtained above 30 get to admitted to Technical and Vocational Schools and Training Centers within the Country.
This section of students, though regarded as a dropout by many Ghanaians, grow up to become the backbone of the countries middle level manpower.
For a developing nation like Ghana, those people are the ones we need to push the developmental agenda forward. They are the ones who drive the development agenda of a developing nation like Ghana. So what is the situations with admission to Senior High School now?
The Current Free Senior High School Admission Process
Current, the Ghana Government is implementing the “Free Senior High School Education Policy”.
What is the Senior High School Education Policy about? Under this policy, every every student who has written the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) gets an admission into Senior High School in Ghana. .
It is more or less, an educational scholarship for every child who has graduated from a basic school in Ghana. The total cost of the education of the child is born by the government.
One accompanying situation that the policy brought was that, even students who have completed the basic, and had stayed home for several years, all gained admission into Senior High School (SHS).
Let’s Look at the indiscipline that this policy brought and the cause of that indiscipline.
The Indiscipline Of SHS Students As A Result Of Free SHS Policy
Several policies of education had be introduced by successive governments, even before the implementation of the free SHS policy regarding who students should be disciplined in school.
Some of these policies, coming from the Child Right International and Human Right Organisations across the world, were very unfamiliar to the Ghanaian educational environment.
As a result, the policies did not achieve its intended purpose. Rather, it emboldened the average Ghanaian student to become more indiscipline, whiles the teacher became more and more powerless.
Even heads of institutions were rendered quiet incapable, when it comes to administering corrective measures on students.
Gradually, a certain perception got to the minds of parents and the wards that, the free SHS students is untoucheable. Where do you think this phenomena will lead to? Remember what I told you about “Cause and Effect”.
Academic Standards Under The Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy
The free SHS policy came with a wholesale promotion for every student irrespective of performance. Now, ask yourself this question.
“How many students would take their academic work serious if they know that, their academic performance does not have any effect on their academic progression.
Remember that for a child to take his/her education serious, he/she needs both the intrinsic and the extrinsic motivation. Here, the motivation of the student to learn is very crucial in educational performance.
Moreover, you can never rule out fall of academic standards as a factorwhen you taking about Indiscipline In 2020 WASSCE Examination.
Many teachers can testify that the attitude of the current free SHS students is a completely negative towards learning.
Many of these students feel that the content at the Senior High School is too difficult for their understanding and assimilation.
Thus many even gave up long ago in Form One. What became their hop after they gave up? Find it below.
The Government Giving WASSCE Past Questions Books To The Students
The Government of Ghana distributed WASSCE past questions books to free SHS students to study. I confidently believe that, these questions were the same questions that were going to set by the WAEC.
Unfortunately, the students misinterpreted that, the government has given them the exact expected questions for their WASSCE examination, what is popularly known in Ghana as “Apoh”.
To the surprise of the wassce candidates, the APOH didn’t drop as expected. This has accounted for the student riots in many schools across the country.
You May Also Read The Following Articles:
- WAEC Orders Investigations Into Leakages – 2020 WASSCE Exams
- WAEC Leak The Identity Of Examiners On Social Media
- WASSCE Core Maths, Social Studies, Chemistry Leakage
Conclusion: Indiscipline In 2020 WASSCE Examination
We have explored the above historical and current perspective of the situation at hand. I believe you have realized that Every stakeholder of education in Ghana has realized the role it played in all of this.
Let’s re-examine the Ghanaian educational system once again. The free SHS policy is very good, but it should be fine tuned to achieve the very objectives of educational.
If an educational system makes a child indiscipline and lawless, then that educational policy should be looked at again.
Lets consider following questions:
- First, what constitutes discipline of students in our modern times?
- Secondly, who should be admitted to read which program in the Senior High School?
- Thirdly, how much contact hours does the average student needs to complete his/her syllabus?
- Next, what is the role of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) in the current educational setup in Ghana?
- Furthermore, how much authority should be given to the Headmaster, the Teacher, and other agents of education in order to affect the life of the child positively?
- Also, if Educational Authorities in Ghana would focus on these question, then Ghana’s education will get better. ETC.
Conclusion:
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