In any country the education system cannot be successful if parents of the children in school do not play their part as expected of them. This is very true wherever we find ourselves in any part of the world.

A lot depends on the policy makers but policy makers alone will not be able to roll out successful policies in education. For such policies to succeed, we need to ensure that all hands are put on deck to help the system to succeed.

Without this it will be difficult for policy makers to succeed no matter their good intentions. One of the major players in the educational sector is parents. It is parents who give birth to children to go to school. Whatever the policy makers are able to come up with must, therefore, be embraced and supported by parents so that the educational programme can be implemented as expected. Without this it will be difficult for any educational system to succeed.

One role played by parents is the payment of fees as well as preparing or grooming the children to push them into schools at various levels. The various levels in this case are kindergarten or preschool, primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

PRE-SCHOOL LEVEL

At the pre-school level parents are expected to pay attention to the young children and get the necessary educational inputs to assist them to learn and be able to accommodate or assimilate what teachers teach them in the classroom. This explains why parents at this level must be prepared to purchase learning aids to help the children in the acquisition of knowledge.

At the primary school, similar assistance will be needed to groom their children into effective young scholars. Such a method continues at the secondary school level until the children get to the tertiary level. Support from parents at this time will, therefore, be very necessary since without such support teachers alone cannot deliver.

When children are supported by parents in this way, they grow up to become good scholars even at the young age and so as they get ready to enter the tertiary level it will be seen that a strong foundation has already been laid for such young scholars to make it possible for them to accumulate more sophisticated knowledge as they prepare to get to the tertiary level.

The tertiary level is a more complex area but if the children, young as they are, get the needed foundation they will be able to cope with the body of knowledge that they have to learn to enable them become complete scholars. If this is done it means that parents would have been able to contribute their portion as expected.

FREE EDUCATION

In Ghana today, the government of the day has come up with free education system at the secondary level. What this means is that parents are not expected to pay school fees for their children, whether at the vocational, technical or at the normal secondary school level. This is good and must be continued not only for the present generation but for our future generation as well.

There are many people who would have become educated if such a free education system had been introduced during their time. The present generation is, therefore, very fortunate to have come under a government that has introduced this free system of education. Poverty in Africa is generally high so African governments need to work efficiently to generate more money and introduce free education system to the people.

ADVANTAGES

The advantage of the free education system is that it reduces the burden of care on parents and enables them to free some of their resources to cater for other needs of members of their family. In addition, the free education system helps present and potential children to develop their talents and become very useful citizens in society. Again, it helps to reduce armed robbery and other social vices that would have occurred had there not been the free education system.

This explains why all over the world countries are praising Ghana for a good policy such as the free education system. The government is not just introducing free education system but encouraging students to also go in for vocational and/or technical education. The development of vocational and technical skills will help the young scholars to become self-employed instead of depending on government for employment.

SELF-EMPLOYMENT

This is important because masons, technicians, painters, designers and all kinds of artisans working in the public sector as well as in the private sector can become self-employed. This is the kind of lifestyle we need to encourage in this country. Many countries in the world have pursued this agenda and enjoying the benefits. There may be employment but the rate becomes reasonably lower compared with what would have been the case if such a system had not been put in place.

In all this, parents are still expected to play their role. They usually do this by encouraging their children to understand the policies in education and  guide them to achieve their ambitions. Without such guidance and assistance from parents, it may be difficult for government alone to do this.

The success of the educational system in any country, therefore, does not depend only on government alone but parents as well. Indeed, other stakeholders such as scholarship organisations and churches and many others are all expected to play the role that are relevant to the educational policy. In addition, they are expected to dialogue with government on what can be done to improve the system.

GOOD INTENTIONS OF STAKEHOLDERS

What is to be done to improve the system can come from parents and other stakeholders but it must come from people with genuine and good intentions as stakeholders. If we embrace good government policies with our hearts and play the role expected of us, we will be able to achieve what is good for the country thereby bring improvement to every person. This is what all stakeholders must bear in mind as they offer any suggestions to policy makers to enable them have the peace to drive the development agenda as far as the educational sector is concerned.

Thus, the success of the educational sector is crucial for the development of the nation and this explains why all stakeholders must do all they can to support government to drive the country forward.

This is a task that we cannot run away from so each one of us, that is, the stakeholders, namely, government, teachers, students and, indeed, everybody should endear themselves to playing the role expected of them and helping to improve the system not only for the good of the country but also to the glory of God.

Contact email/whatsApp address of author:

Pradmat2013@gmail.com(0553318911)

By Dr Kofi Amponsah-Bediako