Sub-Standard University Education in Ghana: The New Challenge

Currently, one of my favourite ways of enjoying Wednesday evenings is to watch the “Zain Africa Challenge”. It’s a quiz organised by Zain and it’s for selected Universities in Africa. The quiz master of the show is great and leaves an “indelible mark” on his audience – a good enough reason to make a date with him every week on the show.

This quiz is based on general knowledge with topics ranging from history, science, African culture, geography, literature, music and current affairs.I don’t think any syllabus is given so the student’s performance depends on their understanding of what’s happening around them and how knowledgeable and versatile they are when it comes to issues covered on the show.

The quiz started with 5 Ghanaian Universities and before long, four were evicted during the 1st round leaving only one that made it to the 2nd stage. As to how they got there it was a miracle. At the 2nd stage, the final Ghanaian university was evicted.

Looking at Ghanaian universities today, it is hardly a surprise that they were eliminated so early? I for one think that our Universities are now places encouraging rote learning, rather than places where ingenuity is rewarded.

The issue here is whose fault is this? Is it the faults of students, lecturers or government? A lecturer who takes over 600 students for one course has no option than to let the class answer “fill in questions”, true or false and mostly objective questions that merely require you to reproduce what the lecturer has taught you. Even these responses can be found in handouts that the lecturers themselves have produced. There is no room for a student to research on any topic unless the student is in a class of less than 100 students and the lecturer is prepared to take the time to mark, or the student loves studying and has a hobby of reading, but for the average student…When even an assignment or a term paper is given that requires students to research, how many students get the papers back?

In my days at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, it was rare to see the “Junior Common Room” full with diligent students. In face, whenever you saw the Common Room full then you will knew there was a football match on. On “normal” days, the common room was a place for playing pool. Students prefer reading novels (that is if they read) to reading newspapers and prefer watching movies to watching the news.

In my opinion the subject of quality university education in Ghana is a challenge to the nation as a whole and it behoves on each and every individual contribute to making our educational system better.

Where do we start from and how do we do it?

Mavis Gardiner
Finance Assistant