All learners should benefit from educational reforms

The Government, through the Deputy Minister of Education, Rev John Ntim Fordjour, last Wednesday, said the country’s educational institutions were experiencing uncertainties with regard to moving towards a sustainable process of digital teaching and learning at all levels, especially following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

The minister indicated that the government was, therefore, embarking on an agenda at the strategic and policy levels to ensure that education would embrace digitilisation.

He said the current demand for tertiary education as a result of rising senior high school enrolment called for the adoption of electronic learning (E-learning).

Rev Fordjour said E-learning could provide comparable access and quality education to all, when practised effectively, and that it could also help close the digital divide since many institutions in the country were now hooked to the internet.

The Ghanaian Times cannot agree better with the government but thinks the failure of the minister to tell the public the challenges faced by the country’s educational institutions with regard to digital teaching and learning can make the public to have the cause to speculate about even things irrelevant in this matter.

It would not be far-fetched, though, to say the challenges would have to do with digital infrastructure, adequate equipment, teachers’ expertise, regular power that ensures smooth running of the E-learning process, not forgetting the cost of data on the institutions and the students, regular and timely sessions and effective assessments.

Whatever the case is, this paper appreciates the fact that the government wants to pursue E-learning at all the levels of the country’s educational system.

In fact, this is long overdue because elsewhere like Australia once a pupil steps foot in Primary 4, he or she is provided with a computer.

In fact, most of the children in metropolitan countries begin using computers at home long before getting to upper primary.

In our case, most of the learners get into tertiary institution before they get personal computers; the only ‘bailout’ is that fortunately some of them can equally use their phones to study.

If truly, the government agrees that today’s world is one in which digitalisation provides solutions to critical challenges, then E-learning must be given the due attention, not lip-service.

To that end, the student loan facility, for instance, should have an optional component for the procurement of a computer, optional in the sense that those who can afford one may choose not to access it.

Other challenges like infrastructure and teachers’ expertise should also be tackled with all the seriousness by, for instance, giving teachers continuous in-service training.

It is heart-warming that the government is said to be pursuing a number of reforms and hopes to collaborate with stakeholder associations to discuss the reforms that would be necessary in its quest to transform outcomes of education.

This paper hopes to suggest that such discussions should take references from the best global educational systems like those in the Scandinavian countries.

The reforms should also encourage all categories of learners to realise their potential rather than hastily consigning some of them, particularly slow learners and those with psychosocial problems, to the thrash can of failure.