Bridging the Gap: Linking School and the World of Work in Ghana

In most countries, there is a considerable gap between what is learned in the classroom and the real life context of pupils’ present or future world (seeAnamuah-Mensah and Towse, 1995;Stevenson, 1995;Muskin, 1997;Tabron and Yang, 1997). This is particularly true of the less-developed countries, where the needs of those not progressing beyond the compulsory stages of primary or junior secondary education are subservient to the perceived academic needs of those progressing further, and particularly by the small percentage proceeding to university. Part of the problem lies in the fact that teachers have limited experience of ‘life outside the classroom’ and no access to resource materials through which to emphasize relevance; part also lies in the extent to which most curricula are examination-driven, as a consequence of which teachers adopt a highly didactic, ‘chalk and talk’ approach to cover the curriculum and meet the expectations of students, headteachers, parents and politicians who judge educational success merely in terms of results.