JSS concept should have been maintained – CAPCOE
Mr Richard Kwashie Kovey, the National Convenor for the Campaign Against Privatisation and Commercialization of Education (CAPCOE), has said that the concept of Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) should be maintained by governments.
Mr Kovey said the original concept was to produce middle-level skill training for students to help provide them with some jobs after school, compared to the current dependence on tertiary education.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency, he said with the provision of workshops, labs, tools, and other skilled equipment available at the JSS schools, students were exposed to practical training instead of over relying on grammar education, which only produced half-backed graduates.
He said that with such skill training, the manpower of the country would have been boosted, putting the country on par with others, such as China, which has many middle-level skilled-trained persons.
“JSS was the best reform Ghana ever had in the educational sector; as part of it, technical skills training was introduced in the Colleges of Educations, and schools were provided with workshops and tools,” he added.
He expressed worry that it has been decades since schools have seen the provision of skilled tools, stating that while some of the ones provided were stolen by unscrupulous community members, others also broke down without replacement.
According to him, instead of successive governments maintaining the path, they rather reversed the system to grammar education, which has not helped the country, especially in relation to job opportunities and creation for the youth.
Mr. Kovey said regrettably, currently there are no resources to train pupils, as concentration is rather on the senior high schools at the neglect of the basic schools, which are the formative years of the children.
He said even the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) schools in Ghana, where students receive hard skill training, lacked modern equipment, leading to them being trained with old and obsolete tools like hammers.
Source: GNA