Formal training within the Gold Coast, now Ghana, was launched in the course of the fifteenth century when Europeans got here to its shores to commerce. Schooling was solely accessible to kids of ladies married to western merchants, and it centered on instructing them the best way to learn and write. The first purpose was to create an informed class to help and run colonial actions.
By 1882, Britain was established because the colonial energy within the area. Academic alternatives have been restricted, and academic assessments served because the gatekeeper to training. They centered on educational information and English proficiency. Outcomes have been used to pick out college students for greater training and white-collar jobs.
The roots of this follow are nonetheless evident in Ghana’s training system. College students are streamed into three tiers of secondary colleges, with disparities in academic sources throughout streams.
Our current examine explored the historical past of academic evaluation in Ghana, and the way colonisation and political accountability formed the usage of evaluation data in colleges. We noticed that evaluation has primarily served accountability functions, obscuring its perform of bettering college students’ studying.
Affect of colonisation
The colonial legacy of evaluation nonetheless influences Ghana’s present testing practices, via a system that emphasises imperialist notions of benefit and achievement.
The West African Examinations Council, chargeable for mandated exams in anglophone west African nations, together with Ghana, was established by the British in 1950. Ghana’s evaluation system nonetheless depends largely on this framework, as western universities require glorious scores on these exams for undergraduate admissions. Moreover, high-stakes examinations persist because of the strain to fulfill international training requirements via worldwide comparisons of pupil achievement.
Political accountability
It is not uncommon for Ghanaians to measure the standard of training by the variety of college students who cross the nationwide mandated testing. Pupil assessments are used as political efficiency indicators and instruments for public coverage and political accountabiltiy. For instance, over the previous 5 years, the federal government has invested about US$5.8 million to purchase previous examination questions to help college students.
Lecturers are additionally held accountable for college kids’ efficiency in nationwide exams. In consequence, they find yourself instructing with the first motive of making ready college students for these exams. Educators and college students give attention to examination success somewhat than studying.
Free education
To help inclusive and equitable entry to training and enhance enrolment charges, Ghana launched a free senior highschool coverage in 2017. But disparities in entry to and enrolment in secondary training persist between kids from completely different socioeconomic backgrounds.
Critics argue that the coverage was rapidly applied for political causes, missing correct consideration of its long-term implications and prices. Others argue that the coverage is a approach to enhance enrolment in secondary colleges.
Importantly, its effectiveness is tied to college students’ efficiency within the Fundamental Schooling Certificates Examination. A pupil’s consequence on this examination additionally determines their placement in one of many secondary college streams through a computerised system.
Learn extra:
Ghana’s highschool system units many college students up for failure: it wants a rethink
The coverage principally advantages college students who cross the examination and qualify for placement. Those that come from low socioeconomic backgrounds or rural areas are sometimes at a drawback.
Failing the examination hinders college students from progressing to senior excessive colleges or technical institutes in Ghana.
Affect of high-stakes examination
The high-stakes nature of large-scale assessments in Ghana’s training system fosters disengagement amongst poor college students and lecturers.
The give attention to exams overshadows the meant studying targets of instructing and lots of different types of evaluation. Analysis of lecturers and colleges is linked to pupil efficiency in exams. Lecturers due to this fact are likely to slender their curriculum to what’s examined. This implies:
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creativity and significant studying are eroded
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some pupils battle to grasp the curriculum content material
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there’s much less instructing time for college kids with particular wants
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there could also be unethical practices to make sure college students cross.
College students from low socio-economic backgrounds and people with particular studying wants usually discover themselves marginalised by these assessments. In the end, the outcomes of large-scale assessments segregate college students into classes of secondary colleges, based mostly on restricted sources.
Future instructions and coverage implications
The precept of equity implies that college students’ development shouldn’t depend on a single check rating, as is the case in Ghana. To fulfill the nation’s fairness targets, the system ought to contemplate various indicators and assessments of pupil studying.
The academic entry insurance policies of Ghana present a possibility to reform assessments. They will shed their colonial roots and encourage prime quality instructing and pupil studying.
Reformed insurance policies ought to stability varied types and functions of evaluation, and supply trainer pointers {and professional} improvement.
Remodeling Ghana’s testing tradition to 1 that helps significant studying and equitable academic outcomes is a substantial problem. Nevertheless it’s an important one if the nation is to achieve equitable training for all.