Current teaching methods dull - Anis Haffer

Educationist, Anis Haffer, is suggesting that current methods of imparting knowledge to students in the country be changed.

“The way [teaching] is now, I think it is only a drudgery. It is a bit too difficult,” Anis Haffer said on Multi TV’s PM Express Monday.

Last night’s current affairs programme focused on teaching and learning challenges as the world marks World Teachers Day. The day also coincided with the 21st National Best Teacher Awards ceremony held in Tamale.

The regular education columnist in the Daily Graphic newspaper thinks the current system of piling up many different subjects for students to learn especially at the basic level mitigates their ability to grasp what is being thought.

Currently Primary 6 pupils study eight subjects – Mathematics, English, Integrated Science, Religious and Moral Education, Creative Arts, Citizenship Education, Information and Communication Technology and Ghanaian Language – before moving on to the JHS level, where students they are made to study even more subjects.

“The basics have to be established and established properly, especially when we talk about literacy and numeracy skills – and I think the focus should only be there”, Anis Haffer said.

He adds that once these are firmly learned by students, they can go on to learn other things with ease at higher levels.

According to him, science teaching in Ghana also leaves much to be desired.

“One of the brightest things that I found out myself as a child is watching a seed grow and writing about what it is that I have done with my own hands”, he recalls.

Mr Haffer also noted that the environment under which students learn does not encourage learning.

“How on earth in this day and age can you be in a school where there is no toilet, water?” he asked.

Mr Ayikoi Awuley Adokwei
Furthermore, contrary to complains by some teachers that a lack of good pay is inhibiting their ability to deliver, Mr Haffar said money would not necessarily guarantee that teachers would be in classroom or even give off their best.

Communications Director for Concerned Teachers Association of Ghana, Mr Ayikoi Awuley Adokwei, had said on the programme that delay by government to pay teachers’ salaries and allowances is dampening their resolve to teach.

But Mr Haffar notes that proper supervision is a better guarantee to ensuring that teachers give off their best.

He said at some private schools, teachers earn less than their colleagues in public schools, but private schools students do better than students from public schools.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor | [email protected]