I Have Found ‘Somewhere’ for Some of the ‘Degrees to Nowhere’

In a conversation with a Japanese co-worker at my part-time job at an after-school kids’ club (Gakudou), he told me about his other role, teaching children admitted to a hospital so that they can keep up with their schoolwork. The after-school kids’ club itself is a facility attached to elementary schools in Japan, where some students with busy parents can stay until their guardians arrive. Equipped with various educational and recreational materials and activities, these facilities employ assistants to manage the space and care for the children. This framework highlights how a developed nation’s job market is fueled by a dynamic conceptualization and structuring of institutions, making them more adaptable to contemporary societal challenges and innovations from universities. One may argue that Ghana’s economy cannot be compared to that of a developed country like Japan. I understand this position, but we must also start from somewhere.

Therefore, the current debate should not just be about the relevance of a university program, but also how expansive the job market can be when powered by the evolving design and innovation of our institutions. And this begins with how we conceptualize and structure the various institutions and systems. If we fail to move beyond our stagnant imagination, then university programs become convenient scapegoats in the discussion of unemployment. The danger with isolating university programs for sacrifice is that universities are restricted and reduced to producing graduates for a rigid checklist of ‘traditional’ jobs. It is like telling the universities that we have these jobs, so just produce graduates who can do them. Instead, our message to higher education should be: we have these jobs, use research to help us expand and make them efficient, and simultaneously produce graduates who can drive this expansion and efficiency. In addition to supplying labor, universities should be tasked and rewarded to supply blueprints for growth and development.

This ‘boxing’ of university programs stifles innovation and ultimately denies higher education the opportunity to lead the charge for national development with innovation. Other emerging and ‘non-traditional’ sectors will find themselves denied their required skilled labor. Also, is the local Ghanaian job market the only target for the universities? Just as the government is currently exporting teachers and nurses, extending such exports to other sectors where some of these countries are lacking also gives universities opportunities to operate at higher international standards.

Ultimately, the problem of unemployment in Ghana, especially in the public sector, is our inability to move beyond the inherited conceptualization and structuring of institutions and systems. We are not asking what else we can add to what is conventionally known as a school, a clinic, or any other public institution. If taken seriously with commitment and dedicated financial investment, this conceptual and structural shift will position the institutions of higher learning to lead with their innovations and effort. This allows us to let data and impact speak before sacrificing a university program. Let me explain.

In this piece, I will focus on the education sector, specifically elementary schools. Our idea of what a school should be seems not to be changing at any moment from now on. Let’s take an average elementary school in a town like Bawjiase. The elementary school will consist of classrooms, a headteacher’s office, and, in an exceptional case, a computer lab. Now, who are the people working there? Teachers. But if we are able to move beyond our stagnant conceptualization of what an elementary school should be and look like, and the quest to enhance teaching efficiency and students’ learning, we will find the value of non-teaching education graduates. Consequently, we will no longer see a problem with the University of Ghana running a non-teaching program in education. This will help teachers focus more on teaching, how to improve their skills, and attend to students’ needs to make education better.

Beyond the bare-minimum layout of the traditional elementary school, imagine elementary schools in towns, not just cities, with a library managed by a specially assigned librarian, a school secretary who supports the headteacher with administrative duties, among others. Even just having these two non-teaching staff added to the teaching staff will not only improve education, but also be a source of sustainable employment. But why won’t we find the need for these professionals? We have a limited conception of their value at that level. Belittling the librarian’s job to watching over books and cleaning the library will make us see no need for them, therefore no need for a library at the elementary school. So for the library period, students will read in the classroom, with the teacher expected to supervise. However, the teachers will find other use of this period. But if we take students’ reading seriously at the elementary school, and see the librarian as someone able to design reading intervention programs for students, develop students' interest and skills in research at that early stage, and support teachers in developing students' reading skills, then we will value them. Not valuing their roles means not valuing the training they need at the university.

This is what we can do at the elementary school. Imagine what can be done at the junior high schools and sectors outside education, if we get innovative and willing to look at these sectors and institutions beyond what we inherited to improving it to address contemporary challenges. Sustainable employment begins with the desire and attempt to solve problems to improve lives and the standard of living, and making good use of research from institutions of higher education.

It is also worth noting that this issue of labeling programs as irrelevant is not limited only to the universities. In the high schools and the basic schools, certain subjects are also tagged as irrelevant. It is a problem that is not peculiar to the universities. Consequently, this demotivates and destroys the morale of both teachers and students involved with these ‘irrelevant’ subjects. Having this problem build up from the early grades also contributes to limiting our education system to traditional courses, unable to diversify to match those of advanced countries.

That is why the former minister Dr. Adutwum’s comment is an important catalyst to invite various perspectives and alternatives to address this problem. However, the solution lies not in shrinking or ‘boxing’ university programs to suit the limitations of what we already have, but in how creative and imaginative we can be in reshaping our system and institutions to address contemporary challenges to improve lives by aligning institutional frameworks to contemporary higher education research.

Nicholas Okota-Wilson
okotakwame7@gmail.com

About the Author
Nicholas Okota-Wilson is an international educational researcher in Japan. He has published a book, “Fixing a Nation from a Japanese Restaurant”, which provides ground-level insights on national development based on his part-time job experience in a Japanese restaurant and other institutions. Copies are available for purchase on https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H7YP2SXZ.

He can be reached at okotakwame7@gmail.com

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