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Tamale, Ghana – For five (5) years running, the Sagnarigu Municipal Assembly in the Northern Region of Ghana, has scored an average of 44.69 percent at the annual Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), that is according to a new research report released by the Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development (CALID).
Between 2013 and 2017, the municipality scored 49.47 percent, 45.25 percent, 41.07 percent, 42.45 percent and 45.20 percent respectively at the BECE.
Undoubtedly the nerve centre of basic, second cycle and tertiary education in the Northern Region, Sagnarigu is blessed with two colleges of education, a technical university, Institute of Languages, five senior high schools and dozens of public and private basic schools.
Moreover, the municipality is home to more than half of all the major local and foreign nongovernmental organisations operating in the Northern Region.
Sadly, the report by CALID, an NGO, indicates that, the municipality is poorly rated in terms of academic performance among other MMDAs in the Northern Region and worst at the national level.
“With all the facilities, Sagnarigu Municipality was 9th position out of 26 MMDAs at the regional level and 125th position out of 2016 MMDAs at the national level in the 2017 BECE”, the report revealed.
The top 10 best schools in terms of performance, according to the report, are largely dominated by private schools.
However, a school by school BECE analysis points out that some schools in the municipality still score zero percent at the BECE.
The results of the research were released at a learning, sharing and review forum for educational stakeholders on the level of performance at the BECE level in Tamale on Thursday. The research was conducted as part of the implementation of the Citizen Empowerment for Transparency and Accountable Quality Education (CETAGE) project.
Executive Director of CALID, Mohammed Awal Sumani Bapio, underscored the need for the Ghana Education Service, District Assemblies, teachers, parents and school children among others, to play an effective role in order to end the appalling situation.
He stressed the point that, the various stakeholders must be committed and ensure that the poor performance of schools and pupils are addressed immediately. “Because apart from we ourselves, no one can or will solve this problem from us. We cant pretend we dont know or understand the problem. We know the problem and the solutions for the problem.”
Mr. Bapio recommended that increased financing and investment in education, monitoring and supervision should be given serious attention by duty bearers particularly GES officials, Parent Teacher Associations, School Management Committees, Assembly members and chiefs if only everyone desires improvement in the quality of teaching and learning in schools.
The forum, which brought together representatives of PTAs, SMCs, civil society organisations, Assembly members, chiefs and teachers from the Sagnarigu Municipality, sought to assess the challenges identified by CALID through the research and proffer solutions to them.
Some of the factors identified to be militating against schools and pupils performance in the municipality include teacher absenteeism, poor supervision of teachers by the aforementioned stakeholders and circuit supervisors and mass promotion of pupils.
The other factors are lack of teaching and learning materials in some schools, lack of resources to conduct mock exams for potential BECE candidates and parents neglect of their responsibilities among others.
Going forward, participants also recommended the need to periodically organize inter or intra-school quiz competitions in order to whip up pupils enthusiasm in learning.
Teachers, they say, should also restrain themselves from subjecting pupils to too much capital punishment especially caning but rather make learning a fun for their pupils.
The participants also recommended that regular in-service training should be organized for all teachers, head-teachers and circuit supervisors so as to enable them give off their best when delivering their responsibilities.
Regional and district education officials, they insist, must also reinforce their monitoring and supervision roles so as to ensure that the right things are done from the top to the bottom in order to enhance quality teaching and learning as well as good performance of teachers and pupils.
By Savannahnewsonline.com/Philip Liebs
