Guidance and counselling, bane of formal education
My good friends, thanks to Providence, we are celebrating another Yuletide season and wishing each other "all the best that life offers". Good to go that way because as human beings, we are gregarious and should ensure that group interests are protected. But beyond that is the individual interest too to realise.
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Here is the catch. Our celebration of the coming and going of seasons won't place us where we want to be unless we take steps to turn the tables in our favour.
"Life is war", as we say in Ghana, which is why it is important for us to know where to pick the pieces and why picking the pieces should place our country where it should be so we can stop complaining about the dire circumstances in which our people live.
And it all has to do with the kind of preparation that is given the people to play their part in nation-building. That is where education ---formal education, I mean---comes in. And there have been perennial complaints about the inadequacies of our education system---not necessarily because it has failed to train us into "parrots" or "copycats" but because it hasn't helped us solve pertinent problems to move our country forward: A fact that no Ghanaian can afford to ignore or deny!!
Ghanaians have been complaining about unemployment for many years. And there is even an Association of Unemployed Graduates in Ghana to accentuate that reality!!
One thing that I have stumbled upon on my rounds to explain a particular problem that the youth in Ghana face in their struggle to chart a proper path in life is the lack of guidance and counselling, especially at the formative stages in life when they most need to be informed about the vicissitudes of life and how the career choices they settle on can make or mar their lives.
I have been to many places and seen many things to persuade me that the kind of education system that we have in Ghana (since the immediate independence era) hasn't helped the Ghanaian youth to know how to deal with life in school or after school just because of the lack of guidance and counselling.
In other countries, structures are in place to help the youth know where to go after schooling. And the youth don't fear the future as long as they know how to navigate the alleys of life-after-school.
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I have known for a fact that the youth in those systems are guided right from the moment they enter the formal school system to identify their talents and helped to explore those areas without stretching themselves too thin.
My many years in the United States has exposed me to this reality. It may be so in other countries, which is why those countries create opportunities for the individual to realise his or her own aspirations for the good of the society.
In Ghana, we have a mixed bag kind of situation that hasn't helped us in any way. The Ghana Education Service doesn't even see the importance of individual talents or future aspirations of students in the system, neither does the Ministry of Education. In effect, every student entering the system is lumped together with the rest and general education imposed on all to make them jacks of all trades but masters of none.
In consequence, then, the Ghanaian system of education is good at giving general education that produces nothing concrete to boost national development. The students take all courses and end up being confused and not really being guided toward specific strongholds on which they can depend to make their presence felt.
General education is good inasmuch as it can produce an individual who knows a bit about everything but it has its downside too; which is terrifying in our present-day Ghanaian situation. It cannot give that individual the skills to help solve any particular problem in any field.
It all boils down to the lack of guidance and counselling. Let me cut a long story short by saying that there are many avenues for helping the Ghanaian student to become more productive than what we have had all these years.
I have a hunch, which is that many job opportunities exist to absorb Ghanaian graduates if only the officials at the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service can be progressive in their thoughts and attitudes to help give the requisite guidance and counselling support that the students need so they don't go about plowing the entire field and reaping nothing.
The worsening unemployment problem is attributable to this condition. Will our authorities think outside the box to help our youth chart better paths in life? What is the value of education if it can't help the individual fit into the society to improve conditions?