The Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports says the country’s education system is a failure and a recipe for sub-standard work and low achievement at all levels. Nana Ato Essuman, who is also a member of the Council of State said the failure of the system is traceable to the lack of emphasis on science, technical and vocational education, saying the current situation is holding back the nation’s development. But he is confident that new educational reforms expected to be implemented in September this year would address the shortcomings. The Chief Director who was speaking at the maiden speech and prize giving day of Oguaa Secondary Technical School in Cape Coast, announced that an amount of ¢200 billion had been allocated from the GETfund to resource vocational and technical institutions as part of the reforms. He said the whole nation was too familiar with shortcomings of the present basic education. Nana Ato Essuman said the system turned out a large number of students who were yet deficient in literacy and numeracy and were unable to either proceed higher up the educational ladder or with came out with insufficient skills to enter the job market. He said for an education system that ended after 15 years for over 60 percent of the school population, it was clearly failing the citizenry. Nana Ato Essuman said students still preferred the grammar type of education owing to the limited progression within the technical and vocational streams, which also lacked the full complement of teachers, tools and equipment for instruction and training.