StakeHolders

The problem of poor quality education is one caused by diverse factors. It also has an undeniable ripple effect on our continent. It is obvious that the problem of poor quality is influenced by many human factors and we’d like to elaborate on some of these factors.

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• Teachers: Teachers are some of the most crucial people in any education process. They can also contribute to the problem of poor quality education. When teachers influence the teaching and learning process to make lessons impractical and largely theoretical students do not get a full learning experience. Sometimes the teachers do not come to the classes at all due to different reasons. In Ghana, we often hear stories of teachers being assigned to struggling rural areas and they blatantly refuse to go. They obviously are not aware of or do not care about the effects their actions have on the education of students in the area.

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• Students: The next category of people affected are students. Students are usually on the receiving end of this problem. More African children are in school now with a primary school enrolment rate above 80 percent on average according to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. Now, let’s turn our attention to the quality of education our children are getting. Sadly, even though they’re in school most of them learn an outmoded syllabus, get little education on ethics, and shallow teaching on character development. At the end of this type of education process, the individuals produced are likely to be very underwhelming people and thus is not ideal.

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• Parents: Parents also play a factor in the quality of a child’s education. A study of the Navango region in Namibia by the University of Pretoria revealed that the lack of effective parent-teacher relationships plays a huge role in student absenteeism. Some learners take advantage of this relationship and skip school regularly. In some cases, the parents of these children feel like their efforts are better utilized outside the classroom. So even though students may come to school they’d have to do some work to help with the economic situation at home and this denies them the chance to fully focus in school. Sometimes they miss classes entirely and this adversely affects their education.

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• Government: Governing educational bodies also play a part in the problem. These bodies are usually in charge of things like the curriculum and the provision of some resources. However, the leaders of these bodies are usually looking out for themselves. They seem to be far away from the happenings in the classrooms. They do not make sufficient changes to syllabi for proper teaching and learning to happen or provide help to schools that need it. If this continues going on Africa may keep lagging behind the rest of the world.