Barely a week after a major debate
about the dwindling quality of
education in Ghana, a new survey has
also revealed that majority of pupils
in basic schools can neither read nor
understand English or any Ghanaian
Language properly.
This was published in the National
Education Assessment (NEA)
report. The survey was carried out by
the Assessment Services Unit (ASU)
of the Ghana Education Service (GES)
with support from the Research
Triangle International (RTI). The
project was funded by the USAID.
The NEA report is a biennial
nationally and regionally
representative measure of pupils’
competency in Mathematics and
English in primary three and six.
According to the report, only two
percent of basic school children
sampled are able to read fluently with
understanding.
The report followed a survey carried
out from July 9 to 11, 2013 that
sampled a total of 19,458 pupils in
primary three and 17,447 pupils in
primary six with 550 public and
private schools in 170 districts in
Ghana.
It aims at measuring pupils’
performance in the two subjects and
intends to give the GES an indicator
of the effectiveness of primary
education system.
Commenting on the outcome of the
report, the immediate past President
of the Ghana Book Publishers
Association, Elliot Agyare, said:
“Reading has not been developed as
a habit for majority of our children.
Secondly we also assume that we will
become readers without adequate
resources. We all complain that the
libraries are non-existent in this
country and schools have not been
resourced with books. As long as
schools don’t have books and the
children don’t have books that they
don’t enjoy reading you don’t expect
them to read.”
He added that “it will be a fallacy to
think that all teachers are adequately
resourced to teach reading in
schools.”
Mr. Agyare suggested that Ghana can
adopt United States of America’s “no
child left behind” reading programme
“which teaches children how to read
until they enjoy it and becomes a
habit.”
He urged the education sector
managers to start a campaign that
emphasizes the importance of reading
and teachers need to be trained on
how to teach reading in the classes.
Meanwhile a United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP)
report says significant progress has
been made in terms of primary school
enrollment particularly over the past
few years due to strategies such as
school feeding programme, capitation
grant and free school uniforms to
improve access to education,
The report, which used the Gross
Enrolment Ratio (GER) and Net
Enrolment ratio (NER) to assess the
participation of children in the
educational system noted a positive
result towards achieving Millennium
Development Goal two (MGD 2).
According to the report, NER in
primary school at the national level
increased from 81 per cent in 2006/07
to 88.5 per cent in 2008/09 and
remained at that level in 2009/10.
GER at the national level also reached
95 per cent in 2007/08 and has
virtually remained at that level for 3
years to 2010.
The report however noted some
regional variations in the
achievement of MGD 2.
“Central, Western, Brong-Ahafo, and
Upper West regions recorded a GER of
more than 100 per cent in 2010 with
Greater Accra Region reporting the
lowest GER. Central Region recorded
the highest NER of 97 per cent while
the lowest ratio is reported in Greater
Accra with the remaining eight
regions recording NER within the
range of 81–90 per cent.”
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