Educationist Samuel Ziggah has urged the
Ghana Education Service to adopt proper strategies on how to teach little kids the act of basic reading in schools.
According to Samuel Ziggah, kids in lower basic school levels are being forced to read materials that are beyond their level and difficult for their brains to digest.
He said the public schools shouldn’t be pressured into forcing kids to read materials bigger than their levels just because their counterparts in the private schools are doing it.
“Ghana Education Service is forcing kids to learn without any clear and proper planning on how to go about it. What basic reading skills are we using, and at what level are we applying them? It’s okay for a kid at Basic 2 to be able to only read the alphabet and five-lettered words.”
“But we want such kids to be able to read a passage, and that is not good. We think what they do at private schools is root learning, but those kids can’t explain. We have to measure the levels of the kids in certain reading skills and not push them to a level that is too big for their brains,” he said on Rainbow Radio.
He also spoke about the need for teachers to be properly equipped with the needed teaching materials and be given better conditions of service to help them properly impact knowledge on the kids.
“We have to guide them properly to make sure that they are capable of reading anything when they mature and not rush them when they are kids. Teachers also play a key role in educating our kids properly with patience, and they need materials to do it.
Teachers also need to be properly incentivized. When I was in sixth grade, we could pass entrance exams, but kids in JHS today can’t even answer entrance exam questions because the standards have dropped, and it’s because teachers don’t even have materials to teach.”
He made the remarks while speaking in an interview on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5 FM with the host Kwabena Agyapong.
By: Joel Eshun/Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
