Varsity Don Raises Concern Over Use Of Pamphlets In SHSs

A former Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Prof. J.S.K Ayim, has raised concern about the reliance on the use of pamphlets in senior high schools across the country. He said some of the pamphlets were not only full of mistakes but also misinformed students. Consequently, he has called for more emphasis to be placed on the use of textbooks which were reviewed by the peers of the authors and which were thoroughly checked for mistakes before they were published. Also, he said, the textbooks of senior high schools gave students a broader perspective about what they were studying, rather than pamphlets. Prof. Ayim said this at the Senior Academic Leadership Training (SALT) for university administrators in Ghana and Nigeria. The event was organised by the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) with support from the Carnegie Corporation. He also advised lecturers to endeavour to be regular in class and reduce the movements from one tertiary institution to the other at the expense of their students. Instead of attending to their students and teaching, he said, some lecturers tended to do what he described as �galamseying�. That and the non-organisation of tutorials, Prof. Ayim said, among other things, affected the effective delivery of education. Prof. Ayim, who was the moderator during a presentation on Quality Assurance by Prof. K.S. Nokoe, a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, said the practice of moving from one university to the other resulted in lecturers having divided attention. He, however, said lecturers had tended to engage in �galamsey� because some institutions did not have enough staff, thereby falling on other institutions for lecturers. He said there was, therefore, the need for the training of more people and the requisite human resource to man the various institutions. The immediate-past Executive Secretary of the NCTE, Dr Paul Effah, said the programme aimed at training university leaders in the next three years. He said training needs assessment was done to find out the skills gap in leadership performance in the universities. Five areas, he said, were identified; they include financial management and resource mobilisation. The training programme, which is targeted at both public and private universities, is expected to train 370 university leaders for the three-year period. The Executive Secretary of the NCTE, Prof. Mahama Duwiejua, earlier in the week, gave a presentation on Repositioning Research in African Universities�. Other presenters at the event included Prof. Jospus Anamuah-Mensah, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba. He spoke on �Funding University Research.�