Preparing candidates for the BECE is a key responsibility of teachers, however, when it comes to finding out who should be responsible for student failure, teachers in Ghana agree that they should not be blamed.
Teaching, preparing the candidate for the examination, and guiding them to do well are common responsibilities of teachers.
In our survey, we sought to get a better understanding of the readiness of educators to own up to the poor performance of candidates, but teachers who responded to the survey said they are not to be blamed for the poor showing of students.
It is not uncommon to find nearly all students presented for the BECE in particular schools making very bad grades, even in the city where more facilities and resources are available for learners and teachers.
What teachers forget is that they are like drivers in a Trotro, the candidate is the passenger, and the school management is like the car owner. If a parent pays the ward’s lorry fair at the pickup point or the lorry station he or she cannot be blamed for the unsafe driving of the car to the destination but instead, the driver and the car owner for not ensuring the best driver or motivated driver is in the front seat.
Now let’s look at the survey results and interpretations
Survey Question 1: Who must take more blame for the failure of a BECE candidate?
Out of the 197 respondents, 106 respondents representing 54% said students should be blamed for their failure. Another 45 (24%) think parents are guilty of the failure of students, 14% thus 28 believe school managers and leaders should be held responsible and just 18 respondents (9%) were of the view that teachers take more blame for the failure of a BECE candidate.
The result is shown in the attachment below
Survey Question 2
To further probe, who should be blamed more for the failure of a BECE candidate, Ghana Education News attempted to find out whether those who teach should be blamed more than those who pay the fees (parents)
Again, respondents were of the view that parents must be blamed more than teachers. 59% (93 respondents) said teachers must not be blamed, 24% (38 respondents) said teachers should take more of the blame whiles 17% (26 respondents were not sure of who should be blamed more). A total of 157 respondents answered this survey question.
The results are indicated below
In our quest to find out if students fail exams because of teachers, teachers said the students fail because (they the students) did not learn. These results were not significantly different from the trend discovered in the first two questions.
136 out of 186 respondents, representing 73% believe the failure of a student is due to the student not learning. (40) Thus, 22% agreed both teachers and students should be blamed for a candidate’s poor performance.
While the remaining 5% thus (10) respondents think teachers should be blamed for a candidate’s failure.
To cross-check if the respondents most of whom are teachers are really given accurate responses to the questions asked in the survey, we put forth a fourth and final question which proved the responses are not entirely accurate and reliable for the first three questions.
This question was our Research Triangulation Question. Triangulation in research means using other means or questions or multiple datasets, and methods, to address a research question and to help validate, confirm or debunk findings from the same respondents or population. This helps to improve the validity and credibility of your findings.
READ: 2022 BECE Starts in 30 Days for Candidates
Triangulation Question: Teachers sometimes contribute to the failure of a candidate.
The results of the question negated the responses and the results of the previous questions. Out of the 165 respondents who took this survey for this question. 34% thus 56 of the respondents said teachers do not sometimes contribute to the failure of candidates. The remaining 66% (109 respondents) were of the view that teachers contributed to the failure of respondents. This result is very significant and paints a true picture denied in the earlier responses.
This is shown in the date from the survey below.
From the survey, we deduced that
Teachers contribute to BECE students’ failure but don’t want to be blamed
For question one, the most sincere respondents were those 18 respondents, representing 9% of the respondents, who were of the view that teachers should be blamed more for the failure of a candidate.
For question two, the most sincere respondents were 26 respondents who said they could not tell who to blame. This response identified that both teachers and students have a key role and a shared responsibility if candidates are to excel in their examinations.
The response observed and picked for question two confirms the response of 22% (40) respondents to question three, who hold the view that when a BECE candidate fails the exam, both teachers and students must be held responsible.
Finally, the response to the Triangulation question supports the above, as the respondents agree that teachers sometimes contribute to student failure and not that the candidate did not learn or prepare for the examination.
READ: 30 Days to 2022 BECE Challenge: Tip 1 On How To Pass Any Exams
From the above, we can conclude that teachers preparing for BECE candidates are trying to avoid responsibility for poor performance. Again, it is to some extent an indication that teachers do not want to be blamed for the poor performance of candidates, but instead students and their parents.
Clearly, teachers in Ghana are stating that they are all too good to be the main determining factor in the poor performance of BECE candidates which is not the case. This is also not entirely accurate.
The fact is this: Teachers contribute to BECE students’ failure but don’t want to be blamed for that.
Teachers would be held responsible for the poor showing of candidates followed by school owners, leaders, and managers. They must therefore continue to work hard and demand the essential resources and motivation from school authorities.
We thank all who took part in this survey for their input.
Source: Wisdom K.E. Hammond | Ghana Education News
[wp-rss-aggregator]
I have read the writeup and have my reservations on comparing the teachers to trotro drivers. In the car, the passengers don’t “learn” anything but in the schools, the pupils learn.
No one can force a pupil to learn when he/she doesn’t want to.
Most of the pupils do not have reference materials to consult when out of school.
The government have removed the cut-off point of entry into SHS so any aggregate he/she gets can guarantee them admission into the SHS so they do not learn.
The government stopped the supply if textbooks to schools so why blame the teacher when the pupil fails?
Please come again with your research and stop trying to put the blame on the teacher.
Thanks for your responses… and contribution to the debate… Disagreeing with the analogy is to say teachers are not to be blamed. Books are key, but teachers surely play a role in a student’s failure and success.
This research is a true reflection of what is out there. But I believe the researcher has misunderstood the 3rd question or has not constructed the question well. The word sometimes in your triangulation question suggests a maybe approach. From the previous responses, you will realize that teachers were also blamed, but not in the proportion that others are blamed. This, therefore, put a larger responsibility on other stakeholders than teachers. I, therefore, think the heading of your research is problematic and should be corrected to reflect the true findings of the research. Thank you.
Thanks for your contribution to the ongoing debate. Contributions like the one you have made are always needed to improve what we do, and you have added great value to the issues. We are highly grateful for your submission.