Dr. Abraham Okrah, a Lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education, has delivered a lecture on The Relevance of the Senior High School Curriculum in Relation to Contextual Reality of the World of Work. The seminar was hosted by the Department of Teacher Education, School of Education and Leadership, College of Education, as part of its monthly seminar series.
Dr. Abraham Okrah making a point during the lecture
Dr. Okrah noted that the Senior High School level has been a terminal point of education for most people in the country and that mass unemployment of the youth after senior high school, without recourse to empirical evidence, has mostly been attributed to the irrelevance of the curriculum.
Cross Section of participants
The goal of his research was to identify the skills embedded in the curriculum in relation to the empirical findings of skills that employers generally demand from employees at the job market.
In pointing out the skills needed in the working environment, Dr. Okrah established that the skills embedded in the Senior High School curriculum concentrate mostly on attitudes and values within the affective domain, as against employers’ requirements of the application of skills within the cognitive domain. Again, the percentage weight values suggested in the curriculum were an embodiment of the skills within the cognitive domain as against the teaching of affective skills that have dominated the curriculum, rendering potential employees equipped with skills of attitudes and values but devoid of the skills of application and practical approach.
Question Time
Based on his findings, Dr. Okrah concluded that the Senior High School curriculum in Ghana is relevant in instilling values into students, but it is not relevant in the application of knowledge that employers usually demand of employees in the work environment. He recommended that the curriculum should be reviewed, if similar researches affirm his findings. The seminar was chaired by Dr. Kwaku Amponsah and was well attended by students and faculty.