Celebrated playwright, Ama Ata Aidoo has registered her dissatisfaction with the emergence of “extra and vacation classes” in Ghanaian schools which she said symbolizes a broken education system.
The award-winning dramatist said the damage the classes phenomenon does to students whose parents cannot afford them is “so big that it is frightening.”
In a Facebook post Monday, Ama Ata Aidoo said the extra and vacation classes run in most schools in the country are “bad enough.”
“When they are organized by the schools themselves, they become almost evil: a confession of the schools’ inadequacy at handling their core mandate,” she wrote.
Former Education Minister, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman expressed same concern in 2015.
The former Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast said there is the need to stem the tide of extra classes that are held in schools.
The Anowa writer said the classes would not exist if the country’s education system was strong.
Ama Ata Aidoo was also displeased with the use of the word “Summer” in summer classes to lure students.
“Whose summer? Where is Ghana on the map? Please, stop the confusion creeping into the Ghana education system,” she said.
Read her post below:
SUMMER CLASSES & SUMMER CAMPS?
The Ministry of Education (MINED) & Ghana Education Service (GES), SUMMER classes? Whose summer? Where is Ghana on the map? Please, stop the confusion creeping into the Ghana education system. Already, the system as it is currently run provides little real education & too much miseducation anyway. Ghana's children deserve better.
Besides some of us are convinced that the emergence of the extra and vacation classes phenomenon is a symbol of a broken education system. The damage they do to the young people whose parents can't afford them is so big that it is frightening. Those extra and vacation classes which are run off school premises are bad enough. When they are organized by the schools themselves, they become almost evil: a confession of the schools' inadequacy at handling their core mandate. Sometimes, with excursions and other recreational activities thrown in, on-campus vacation classes are a thinly-veiled blackmail. To get anxious parents to pay huge sums to have their youngsters return to school to play with their friends!
Then recently, we learned of a SUMMER camp at Wesley Girls High School, to which they invited the Chief Justice to speak?! I fear this is beyond comment.
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