When I first watch the video clip on social media, in which Richlove Oduro was speaking, I thought she was a student of one of the Category A schools. She was very composed and so eloquent and spoke impeccably in English, which is very unusual of most students these days.
Apart from her oratory, she spoke with such wisdom like a research fellow with a doctorate degree, who was reporting on findings that took five years to complete. Her recommendations were just perfect and I wish education authorities would apply them for the sake of our education system.
Richlove Oduro, is a student of Nsein Senior High School, now Kwame Nkrumah High School (KNSHS), a virtually unknown school in the Category B rankings. What came out from Richlove, should place her among the elite in society who can genuinely provide solutions to Ghana’s problems.
She is the type we need in Parliament who will tackle issues in a non-partisan way for the good of Ghana in general. She could be a good judge, a good politician or a good administrator in the future, who will thrive to provide the best for society. She could even be our first female president, who will lead the country on the right path and be very fair in her delivery.She could certainly can make the difference and change the course of this country.
In summary, from the wisdom coming from her, there is the need for the Ghana Education Service (GES) to change its ways and recruit teachers, fairly to all schools. I will add that the GES must start endowing training schools, to produce very good teachers, like the ages gone past.
What is happening in this country today is that the well-endowed schools, who call themselves good schools, will always rush to grab the best students with good grades between 6 and 12. They are the good schools because they have the best products to work with.
But if a lower category school, like KNSHS, gets low performing students, with an average grade of20, but manages to turn them into very good students, better than most of those in Category A schools, then such schools should rather be classified as the good schools.
It looks like the GES is more concern about protecting the so-called well-endowed schools and pushing all that is good there, and leaving out the lower category schools.
A school like KNSHS, according to Richlove is for academic excellence. The students are trained to become nobles who will go out there, make an impact and correct mistakes been made. The school’s core values are discipline, integrity, hard work and to make perfect people for society. All these are shown in Richlove Oduro.
Richlove went on to state what many people seem afraid to say aboutthe National Science and Maths Quiz (NSMQ). She categorically stated that the NSMQ should not be the benchmark to rate schools. And here I agree with her. Even the WASCCE rankings, especially of the Year 2023, show that the top preforming NSMQ schools could not appear in the top five.
Even the quiz mistress of NSMQ, has come out to complain that students who top the quiz, perform poorly at international competitions.
Holy Child Senior High School, never won the NSMQ competition, however in 2007 or thereabouts, the school won an international science competition.
Three Ghanaian students topped over two million students in the whole of West Africa in WASSCE 2023. They were Amo-Kordieh and Asenso-Gyambibi from St James Seminary, in Abesim, Bono region and Dzandu from Labone SHS in Accra.Amo-Kordieh and Dzandu are reading medicine.
These schools never won the NSMQ.In the two examples, Richlove was right in saying, the NSMQ is just a show and must not be used to rate schools.
Richlove’s statements made something clear. There is a problem with the education system in Ghana and until this is checked and corrected, our educational standards will remain low.
Here in Ghana, teachers and lecturers grade themselves more on the number of students who fail their exams than on the number who pass. Elsewhere, teachers do their best to impart knowledge into the students who perform remarkably and the teachers feel elevated. Education in Ghana is on rocky grounds now. The method of teaching where students are made to chew and pour instead learning to apply knowledge is distancing us from the rest of the world. Something must be done on the Ghana case.
To correct lapses in the education system, Richlove, rightly put it that the GES must not be bias, but make resources equally available for all schools. The old school-syndrome where people in authority push resources to their old schools which are well-endowed and leaving out the less-endowed ones, is not helping.
I support Richlove Oduro when she suggested that every school must be treated equally. I thank God for her life and pray that the authorities, including the executive arm of government, should invite her for discussions. She has good ideas that can transform not only our educational system, but society as a whole.
Richlove is a lone star shining in the dark sky. Her light can shine on our path to progress and development. May God bless her and endow her with more wisdom to help Ghana and Africa.
By Hon. Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
