Has the BECE deteriorated into a penal code? How to transform education for every youngster to succeed

Howard Gardner – the author of “Changing Minds” - has done the world a great service, and he needs a standing ovation for it. Gone are the days when test scores from the Intelligence Quota (IQ) were used to measure how intelligent people were. By that standardised test, the higher the IQ, the smarter the person.

In its heyday, the IQ was used to support the view that particular races were smarter than others. At the root of the bias was what many considered a racist stab against particular ethnic groups, especially people of African descent.

To begin with, how is it possible to test all human beings justly with the same broad brushes, such as the IQ, or even the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE)? To even compare identical twins may set the nosey tester staggering on a slippery slope.

The genius of Howard Gardner was simply to transform an outmoded question, “How smart are you?” (which standardised tests tend to feed on) into the innovative “How are you smart?” (which taps into people’s innate abilities and interests). That inventive variance - of a simple four-letter syntax - revealed a bold new world of enlightenment.

From that ingenuity evolved Gardner’s observation – which he termed the Eight Multiple Intelligences - to show that not all people can be measured by the same yardstick.

He noted that people’s natural proclivities are both multi-faceted and dimensional as the following God-given natural aptitudes:
• Linguistic: Proficiency with languages;

• Mathematical and logical: Precision with numbers, and enjoyment of abstract and structured thinking;

• Visual and Spatial: Thinking in pictures and visual images, interests in art, maps, charts and diagrams; or the use of movement to assist in one’s curiosity;
• Musical: Sensitivity to mood and emotion, enjoyment in rhythm, understanding of the nuances of music;

• Interpersonal: Emotional maturity, ability to relate well with others; a good mediator, and communicator;

• Intrapersonal: Self-motivation, high degree of self-knowledge, strong sense of values;

• Kinaesthetic: Good with timing, skilled at handicrafts and working with hands, interests in sports, acting, and touching things;

• Naturalistic: The ability to connect with the living world and the preservation of the natural environment.

Human aptitudes or natural interests are varied and dissimilar; how, then, do we consistently measure such a wide open field merely with “sit and copy” traditional education and tests? In other words, we keep keeping on – year after year – strapping young people behind stale desks without so much as stopping to reflect whether they’ve been put on the right paths.

That lapse, in itself, is an indictment on the quest for quality education expected for the bulk of Ghana’s youth! Is it any wonder then that every year a good half of the youth continue to fail academic type examinations?

The mess is akin to holding the BECE yardsticks as clubs to hammer down the heads of the youth yearly; that is to say, pass the BECE or be forever penalised as failures. The education system - as practised in Ghana today - is creating losers right on the blind side of the policy wonks themselves.

Hasn’t it yet occurred to anyone that the more we produce elitist academic types only, the poorer the nation gets? We surely need adults in the room to resolve this most glaring defect.

In respect to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, a linguistic facility will involve academic elements including the ability to read and write English as a second language and even one’s mother tongue. Similarly, mathematical and logical reason may require structured elements for engineering, and so on.

But even then, for engineering, architecture, and the various sciences to be truly useful and applications oriented, they are driven by movement of the limbs. The expertise required is dynamic in nature.

Down the line, Kinaesthetic and Naturalistic learners may not be academic types. Ask the farmers from Thailand - who make a fortune exporting perfumed rice to Ghana - whether they had to pass the BECE first. Let’s also be reminded of Tetteh Quarshie – of blessed memory – who introduced the Gold Coast to cocoa beans, now Ghana’s key foreign exchange earner. Another icon, Charles Branson of Virgin brand of lucrative ventures, tends to share secrets they don’t teach you at school.

To be very clear, the BECE is great for some learners; but not for all! The world is full of people who learn by doing things and thinking on their feet. A good number of the so-called academic failures may belong to this group of learners.

The good news is that Ghana is endowed with 92,000 square miles (or 280,000 square kms) of an excellent hinterland, home to great many resources and natural inputs; and that may prove a bonanza for hands-on learners, if things are structured properly for them. That calls for the need for project-based learning. It is high time to question the conventional methods and begin to think of original solutions.

I noted in the column, “Science education for developing the districts: Local content for project-based teaching and learning” about “How unimaginative it is for a country crying out for jobs and employment to continue importing corn flakes, canned corn, flour, biscuits, sugar, rice, canned tomatoes, tropical juices, chicken, canned beef and the rest!” It makes no sense at all.
[anishaffar@gmail.com]