A dose of truth: How Senyo Hosi got his UG take wrong

Make no mistake; I do not disagree with the substance of his argument.

Mr. Hosi claims the tutoring being served in the country’s premier university does not equip graduates for the job market.

This seems strange though, seeing that he brags of three degrees from the same university, and as Chief Executive of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, I’d say he isn’t doing badly.

But he came down hard and very hard, and that’s where even those who agree with his views abandon him and you cannot blame them. “...you guys are not thinking,” is perhaps too harsh for those who played their part in your today.

‘You guys are not thinking!’ - Senyo Hosi fires UG management

Maybe sometimes the truth must be said no matter how unpalatable.

A vociferous professor from the university replied him in full measure though, and if it were an academic contest, I’d say we award the marks, find the winner and end it there.

But seeing that this is a matter of livelihood and national security at large, why stop here while there’s still more of the issue to milk.

Hosi may be right in his criticism of the mode of tutoring in UG but he is all forms of wrong by making it a UG problem.

He said he won’t employ any graduate from the University of Ghana because they’re not fit for the job, despite them holding a first-class degree in the same field. He is not wrong.

But can anyone candidly say KNUST trains its students to suit the job market any better than UG does? Don’t waste your time, it’s a big NO.

Actually, no university in Ghana does; no school in Ghana does.

The problem Senyo Hosi went to the 70th Anniversary launch of UG to nag about is no more a UG problem than it is a tertiary level problem.

It started way back in Day Care and Kindergarten when the kid that picked legos to build stuff was lashed and asked to join the masses to learn A for Apple and B for Ball.

For this reason, I’m just amazed by subsequent governments when they keep biting a tip of the fruit because I refuse to believe they do not have the answers; willingness to do so, is a different matter.

University of Ghana cannot produce fit-for-market graduates in four years -or is it three and a half- when the candidates they receive spent three years of their lives learning A for Apple and B for ‘Bpple’ and C for ‘Cpple’, and then nine years learning Kofi is a boy and Ama is a girl.

Their high school days are then spent learning fractional distillation on a blackboard; okay let’s just say whiteboard.

How does a right-thinking member of society expect UG or any other university for that matter use four years to change a lifetime of foolery?

Let’s be serious please, education in Ghana is on the decline, to pretend it is a university problem would be a joke.

Maybe, the takeaway from Hosi’s outburst is for all of us to decide that the time is now when our educational system is taken away from the hands of the bellyful politician because as far as they’re concerned, 5,000 more people have gone to high school and 50% of them qualifying for tertiary is enough.

Well, it’s not.

Until Senyo Hosi can willingly and happily employ a graduate from UG, checkmate to all those handling Ghana’s educational system; right from the nursery.



The views expressed in this article are those of the writer, Oswald Azumah and do not in any way or form represent those of Myjoyonline.com or the entire Multimedia Group where he is attached.