Country’s educational leadership must be change-oriented
The launch on Friday of the National Education Leadership Training Institute (NELI) in Takoradi in the Western Region must not be seen as one of those things.
The launch means that the country had lacked the requisite educational leadership knowledge and skills to meet the current expectations in education.
This must not be construed to mean that the country did not have qualified educational leaders or administrators; what it rather means is that we need educational leaders who are always on their feet responding to changes in life which must be responded to with different educational strategies.
This is why NELI is said to primarily create a permanent independent institution dedicated to educational leadership training offering long-term, tailor-made leadership programmes with certification for current and aspiring school heads and educational managers.
Such educational leaders will, as stated as an objective of NELI, seek to improve students’ learning outcomes by effective leadership in the education sector.
We heartily welcome NELI because we have at certain times questioned some sorry happenings in the country’s education sector.
We have, for instance, questioned the inability of some junior high school (JHS) leavers to read or construct basic meaningful sentences in speech and in writing.
We also deplore the situation where a good number of JHS students have no idea about what careers they intend to pursue in later life, why and how to get there.
It is more sad to hear some shallow responses even graduates and tertiary students give to certain questions posed to them at certain places.
If you doubt this, watch the various pageants and other competitions involving them.
All these flaws can be attributed to poor educational leadership, as heads or administrators of schools in the country do not effectively supervise and guide teachers, especially those at the first and second-cycle levels.
Normally, we would not expect such supervision at the tertiary level, yet we wish to suggest that the changing times call for it at that level too, but not in the way as it will be done at the basic level.
For instance, the rumoured sex-for-grade at the tertiary educational level must be checked with educational leadership that is assertive and unbending.
And we think when all the negative character-related issues have been addressed, there is one important attitude educational leaders should inculcate in learners.
They should help learners to imbibe the attitude to observe changing times and the sense to respond to them; and also be futuristic or visionary.
Such an attitude should be embedded in values that call for honesty, hard work for indelible achievement, service to humanity, incorruptibility, the spirit of sacrifice and being law-abiding.
It is clear today that the educated citizens of this country lack these values, which is why we see corruption, dishonesty and lack of vision among the people.
The situation is worse among a greater number of politicians; they promise the people heaven but hijack all the goodies for themselves, their families and cronies,
and care less about the hardship of the people.
State officials and their cronies have learnt smooth talk with which they shortchange the state and swindle the masses.
The status quo must change and it will take only educational leadership to do so.
