PRESIDENT’S SPEECH AT THIRD MATRICULATION The President and CEO, Professor E. Kingsley Larbi, has called on the government and all stakeholders in the education sector to join hands in setting up a robust system that will efficiently tackle the fallen standards in the education in the country. “Though we have witnessed increase in enrolment levels at especially the basic sector as a result of the various interventions put in place by various governments, the growth has not matched with quality,” Professor Larbi said. |
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Professor Larbi said the numerous interventions put in place have not been able to address important issues such as planning ahead of time, poor culture of maintenance and staying within time frame; “which result in a total breakdown of law and order.”
He questioned the result that Ghana will be expecting from people who through no fault of theirs are made to study under trees or makeshift structures; schools where the children have never seen workshops or libraries and worse of all where there are no teachers.
“Our vision of moving beyond political independence to achieve a knowledge-based, highly skilled and technologically advanced society will continue to elude us until we all come together as a nation to collectively and robustly deal with the challenges before us,” he added.
Professor Larbi who said this when he was delivering his speech at the 3rd Matriculation Ceremony of the Regent University College of Science and Technology held at Dansoman, also wondered why Ghanaians excel whenever they found themselves beyond the shores of the land or when working under expatriate leadership but are different when it comes to their own land.
“What this means is that the Ghanaian is capable of excelling but the orientation one might have had during one’s education, coupled with some aspect of our culture, is putting us backwards.”
Professor Larbi was quite optimistic that Ghana in particular and Africa in general, have been endowed with all that is needed to be successful but unfortunately, our orientation seem to tell us that someone else can make it work for us.’
Buttressing his point with assertion from various quarters that certain key areas can only work when expatriates are in charge, he added “but we cannot also blame those who gave those sectors to the expatriates because, the Ghanaian will show some level of incompetence when given such a position.”
Professor Larbi called for a knowledge-based education which can conquer the past, situations and obstacles; make better decisions and create a better and more fulfilling life.
He proposed three main areas of knowledge that people should be made to acquire: knowledge of who and what one is capable of doing; knowledge in terms of acquisition of the relevant skills and technological know-how and knowledge in terms of the fear of God.
He challenged the 453 matriculants to take up the pieces and reinvent them adding that ‘every generation has the challenge of making the present better than the past.”