Past questions for students formalise rote learning — Sir Sam Jonah

The Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Sir Sam Jonah, KBE, has raised concern about the government’s decision to institutionalise the purchase of past examination questions for students.

Such a practice, he said, validated the country’s dependence on rote learning and memorisation.

“We ought to be troubled by the recent government decision to institutionalise the purchasing of past examination papers for distribution to students. This must be a very low first.

“Regrettably, this decision in itself formalises our reliance on rote learning and memorisation at the expense of content comprehension and innovative thinking,” he emphasised.

He told a gathering when he delivered the keynote address at the Graphic National Development Series (GNDS) last Tuesday that with such a practice, the country’s future leaders were being trained to repeat or rehash the past; to rely on shortcuts, and to fear failure rather than embrace learning.

“We are training them to cut corners to replicate and recite, instead of understanding, innovating and producing. We are lowering the standards of our children’s education,” he emphasised.

Graphic

The Graphic National Development Series is a platform offered by the nation’s foremost media organisation, Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL), to discuss issues of national interest and to propose solutions for national development.

Tuesday’s event was attended by the United States (US) Ambassador to Ghana, Virginia E. Palmer, persons from academia, civil society organisations and other stakeholders in the education sector.

It was on the theme: “A critical look at education and culture in Ghana to chart a course of national development, peace and our collective prosperity”.

Sir Sam said what was needed was a mindset of innovation, which could only be triggered by practical learning and thinking on our feet.

“Dr Kwame Nkrumah, our first president, clearly understood the need for a mindset change. This, he sought to instil through the Young Pioneer Movement, which was a call on our youth to serve Ghana with courage, tenacity and loyalty,” he said.

He proposed that it started with its educational system as the key tool for mindset change.

Role

Education, he said, played a critical role in shaping minds and that nations that had successfully transformed their populations had made values-based education a priority.

“Part of our problem as a country has been an archaic system where going to school per se is mistaken for education. Year after year, we have produced graduates that have next to nothing to show beyond certificates. It has been said that education is what remains after one has forgotten everything learned at school,” he said.

Indeed, he said the country’s education sector was grappling with a mindset problem that threatened its future. 

Sir Sam said the system had prioritised outward frivolities for the impressionable like rote learning and examination results over critical thinking and problem-solving and that it had given employers the added task of tuning graduates to apply learning in the solution of problems that plagued society.

“We feed students with theories that are only marginally relevant to our circumstances, and allow students to pass through our classrooms and lecture halls with no education passing through them,” he said.