Every 12 months, when WASSCE effects are launched, Ghana erupts into the similar acquainted debates: Did the nationwide go charge move up or down? Is Free SHS operating or failing? Almost all the time, the dialog revolves round one quantity: THE NATIONAL AVERAGE. But our obsession with this unmarried determine hides greater than it finds.

The fact is unassuming: nationwide averages let us know not anything about what’s in reality riding efficiency in our colleges.

Beneath the headlines sit down loads of Senior High Schools functioning at dramatically other ranges. Some proceed to excel, recording four-credit go charges of 60 to 90 according to cent.

Others were caught underneath 20 according to cent for years. If we proceed fixating on nationwide averages, we can by no means perceive the true forces shaping our instructional results.

A contemporary have a look at school-level WASSCE efficiency between 2017 and 2023 (proven in a cluster of anonymised colleges labelled AA to JJ) makes this painfully transparent. While colleges reminiscent of AA, BB, HH, II and JJ persistently push nationwide averages upward, others like CC, DD, EE and FF hardly ever go the 20 according to cent mark. Their persistent underperformance drags the nationwide moderate down 12 months after 12 months.

Yet when the nationwide effects are introduced, we by no means ask an important query:

Which colleges stepped forward, which declined, and why?

It is identical mistake economists would make in the event that they attempted to analyse inflation with out taking a look on the particular pieces riding costs up or down. To perceive inflation, you don’t read about the total charge by myself; you damage it down. Is it meals? Transport? Rent? Only then are you able to craft centered answers.

Education is not any other.

If we need to lift nationwide WASSCE efficiency, we will have to abandon the lazy convenience of nationwide averages and embody the laborious paintings of MICRO-LEVEL ANALYSIS. Policymakers will have to be capable of level obviously to which colleges are bettering, that are deteriorating, and what elements, academics, amenities, monetary resources, and pupil preparation, provide an explanation for the diversities.

This is how actual interventions are designed.

A college that has recorded 8 according to cent go charges for 5 instantly years does no longer want the similar enhance as a faculty often functioning at 70 according to cent. Yet our insurance policies ceaselessly deal with them as even though they face the similar demanding situations.

They don’t. Until the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service shift from extensive nationwide conversations to detailed school-level diagnostics, many suffering colleges will proceed to be invisible within the information and within the coverage reaction.

Ghana does no longer have a countrywide efficiency disaster; it has a distribution disaster. A somewhat small workforce of consistently low-performing colleges determines whether or not the nationwide moderate rises or falls.

If even a fragment of those colleges have been supported to transport from 10 according to cent go charges to 35 or 40 according to cent, the nationwide image would exchange dramatically. WASSCE research will have to subsequently evolve.

It will have to forestall being an annual ritual of political point-scoring and change into a major workout in figuring out the true drivers of instructional efficiency. A country that measures correctly can interfere correctly. A country that analyses deeply can make stronger meaningfully.

Until then, Ghana will proceed to be fixated on nationwide averages, whilst ignoring the granular realities that actually form the way forward for its youngsters.

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made through Readers and Contributors in this platform don’t essentially constitute the perspectives or coverage of Multimedia Group Limited.