The country’s development depends on how practical its
education is in order to make students problem solvers to help with
industrialization, distinguished members of the Mfantsipim Old Boys Association
(MOBA) have said at the maiden edition of their annual engagement series.
“Ghana’s prosperity depends on the practicality of
education: from primary to the universities,” Anis Haffar, and educationist and
a MOBA said.
“The problems associated with youth unemployment
across Ghana are so alarming that for our graduates to be processed out of
tertiary institutions, year after year, without the skills to solve problems or
opportunities to be entrepreneurs is a great disservice to the continent,” he
added.
The event, which featured four panelists speaking on
education, industry, infrastructure and finance, encouraged students to strive
to solve problems and engage in more research.
Anis Haffar, who has designed and conducted numerous
workshops and teacher education seminars over the years, indicated that many of
today’s teaching methods stifle both understanding and skills building.
“The point is simply this: where there are no
practical connections to the subjects being taught, there cannot be any
appreciable commitment by the learner. And where one cannot develop the skills
to apply what is learned to create anything useful, what then is education
for?” he asked.
He appealed to teachers to adopt the “Problem Posing
Approach”, a more interactive method of teaching, to enable students take
active part in teaching and learning.
According to him, the method was proposed by Mr Paulo
Freire, a Brazilian educationist, in his book titled “Pedagogy of the Oppressed
in Modern Education”.
He urged teachers not to consider themselves as the
repository of knowledge and to allow students to contribute to teaching and to
study to gain the expected results.
He said students must move away from the rote learning:
‘chew, pour, pass and forget’ syndrome to the application of scientific and
mathematical principles to solve societal challenges.
Mr Haffar said rote learning is the bane of
innovative, critical thinking and the application of scientific and
technological principles to solve problems.
He called for an educational restructure where
students would be oriented to contribute to national development by solving
societal problems and create a jobs for themselves.
The annual engagement series was on the topic:
“Advancing Ghana’s Progress Through Effective Professionalism Thinking and
Looking Ahead- Dwen Hwe Kan’’.
Former Volta River Authority (VRA) boss, Kweku Awotwi,
who is also a MOBA, highlighted the importance of education, asking government
to invest more in it.
Another speaker, Prof. Bernard Baiden, Dean of the
KNUST Business School, sought to find out whether the country has been planning,
and added that the resource envelope of government has been shrinking and all
over the world governments are looking elsewhere.
He also pointed out that the infrastructure space, specifically
construction in Ghana is being dominated by foreigners and reckons that they
are not doing something different that Ghanaians cannot do. “We need to create
the right atmosphere for Ghanaians to participate,” he added.
Patrick Kittoe, Chief
Credit Officer at Sovereign Bank Limited also spoke on public
finance and the fact that the country should be managing its resources like “a
business man.”
He also stressed that financing needs to look into the
future “so we have to grow start-ups as well as embrace innovation, by
developing a national mindset that gives us the opportunity to do new things.”
source:B&FT
No comments:
Post a Comment