NAGRAT opposes scrapping of JHS, SHS

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) have opposed the call by the Charismatic Bishops’ Conference for government to scrap the Junior and Senior High educational system and bring back the ‘O’ and ‘A’ level educational system.

The Conference made the call in a statement on Tuesday in which they indicated that the Junior and Senior High Schools lack quality.

“We call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because the quality of the products of the schools and the universities today, leaves much to be desired. Any employer today knows that there are many of our graduates who cannot even read and write English properly. We call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because prestigious schools in Ghana (like Wesley Girls’ High School) do their own entrance examination to screen their students. Why would they do another screening examination if the JHS results could be trusted? It is obvious that even the secondary schools do not trust the JHS system. We call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because universities do their own entrance examination to screen their students. Why do the medical schools do another examination after the SHS results?”

“Under the old system, the ‘A’ level results were accepted as the basis for entrance into the university. It is obvious that the universities do not trust the SHS system and that is why they do an entrance examination for medical school. We call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because international universities require our SHS graduates to do a foundational course for a whole year before admitting them to the university proper. Years ago, graduates from secondary schools in Ghana did not have to do such foundational courses because they already had a good foundation. We call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because of the quality of the examinations which they write. We call the JHS and SHS an inferior form of education because we have reason to doubt the current ability of the WAEC to conduct credible examinations", the Conference stated.

But speaking in an interview with Radio Ghana the Vice President of NAGRAT, Eric Angel Carbonu, said nostalgic feelings should not be the basis for educational reforms in the country.

“The problem is that we do not change educational system or embark on educational reform based on nostalgic feelings that people have, we embark on educational reform and change based on proper research outcomes and the need to improve systems that we all have agreed to be part of.”

“Now when you talk about going back to the old system that is ‘O’ and ‘A’ level just because peoples say the quality of education is low, does that mean that the moment you change to ‘O’ and ‘A’ level you are going to have a very high quality? Absolutely not, I speaking to you this evening is a product of the old system, the old system had very serious challenges, it sorted student out and the student that are presented to write advance level are few in any case those days that we were running the old system it is not every secondary school that run the advance level", he added.