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I felt like I had been hit with a ton of brick when I read news of the failures at Anyinam Kotoku Local Authority Junior High School in the Eastern Region where no pupil according to reports has passed the basic examination that would see them through the next stage; and this comes just days after an announcement to reverse the number of years in Senior High Schools from four to three.
I would leave the debate on the merit or otherwise of how long pupils should stay in Junior or Senior High schools to the experts, but schools such as Anyinam Kotoku L.A. J.H. S. put our economy at risk. A London School of Economics study in 2008 showed that workers’ output may be up to 25 per cent and that is because they have “failed to develop literacy and numeracy skills by the time they leave school.” What can we expect from the former pupils of this unfortunate school?
We cannot allow parts of our nation to become the epicentre of retrogression by condemning people living at these wrong addresses – the parts of the country other than the major cities and towns to failure and expect the nation to grow. We are seriously turning many parts of our country into underclass communities and this must be a major source of worry to everyone.
What is more shocking to me is the neglect and indifference by the previous government to the suffering of communities such as Botianor, Kunbungu, Adukrom and Anyinam Kotoku. Our leaders, especially policy makers should be ashamed of their failures. Their activities clearly underscores a statement made by the late Pan African writer, historian and professor – John Henry Clarke – to the effect that “powerful people will never educate powerless people in what it means to take away the power from them.”
Source: Modern Ghana