Last year the National Service Secretariat deployed over 68, 000 national service personnel to various sectors of the Ghanaian economy. These persons were graduates from various tertiary institutions in the country and as the law required had to serve their country for a year. In a few months, the over 68, 000 personnel serving their country will be bringing their service to an end. This is not a peculiar case, because in 2011/2012 the national service secretariat deployed 60, 350 personnel while in 2010/2011 they deployed 60700 personnel. I know the story would not be different if one goes back to previous years. One may wonder what is he driving at, but my dear reader, please don’t be in haste to jump into conclusion because there is more to come. Tracking the number of people who graduate each year from our numerous tertiary institutions and supposedly, if they were all to be captured under the national service scheme (which is almost impossible), one could then conclude that, within three years, this country has produced 189,050 graduates from the universities, polytechnics and other educational training colleges (the teaching and nursing training colleges to be specific). The simple question then is, “To what extent has our economy grown or expanded to capture the number of graduates produced each year?” In the light of all this, within years Ghana has recorded a provisional GDP growth of 7.1% in 2012, from 14.4% in 2011, and 8.0% in 2010. So realistically, our economy is not expanding as we have been made to believe by our politicians and to make things worse, a significant number of graduates are produced each year. My question again is, “where do these graduates go after dutifully serving their country for a year?” The answers to these questions are more than obvious and they lead me to think “where are we headed as a nation and are our politicians being honest? In a few months to come, these 68, 000 brains will be thrown to the streets (although a few may be favoured to find good jobs, the majority of our graduates will find themselves in this same situation). These are people we use the scarce resources of our nation to train. What make it so sad are the aspirations of the parents as well as the higher expectations of these graduates that might see no light. In fact, this has been the cycle that we experience as a country each year. My heart bleeds for the future of this country. For how long are we going to continue like this as a country? I think it is time serious minds rise up and speak about this issue and force the appropriate authorities to do what is right for the benefit of all of us and not few. I have always had cause to complain about our educational system. In the last elections (well I don’t know if the elections are truly over since there is a case still pending in the Supreme Court) education became a big campaign issue. More often than not, I stated that, our leaders have really lost the key point about our educational system and I still maintain it. People believe our problem in the educational sector might be that of affordability or accessibility but I beg to differ. The few who have managed to reach the top of our educational system are still hovering around, moving from one organisation to the other in search of employment. So what then is this noise about accessibility or affordability? What I think we need as a nation is a complete overhaul of our educational system. I believe strongly, this country needs to embark on a massive educational reform from the basic level, to the secondary and tertiary. As an MPhil student, I remember our curriculum lecturer one day asked us about the philosophy of education for this country and to our surprise, there isn’t (and I’m using isn’t because I don’t know if there is any now) a comprehensive well thought thorough philosophy of education that matches the educational progression of the Ghanaian student. It is therefore not surprising that most educationists have stressed the need for human resources that match the needs of this country and not mere graduates. But I dare say, our policy makers do not think this way at all. The Kufour administration missed a great opportunity to truly redefine the educational system of this country. I have always maintained that the Prof. Anamuah-Mensah committee (2007 Educational Reform) should have tackled the educational problem of this country from the core and not the peripheral. Until such a time that this country embarks on a comprehensive educational reform that will touch the core of our educational system, we will continue to churn out graduates each year who would have nowhere to go after their national service. The core of our educational system that I’m talking about is the curriculum. In the 21st century, it is amazing the kind of things that runs in our curriculum right from the basic school to the tertiary level. We teach students things that technology is used to teach in the advanced world. Students are therefore forced to memorise formulae and solve long equations that a click of a button could simply do. For instance, in our modern world where there exists numerous accounting software, students in our nation are still asked to balance accounts manually. It amazes me. How do you then expect this student to fit into the job market? What are we doing to ourselves as a country? A statistics student would have to memorise all the relevant formulae and pour it out during examination without laying his hands on single statistical software till he/she graduates. No wonder we have an association for unemployed graduates. This situation, I’m afraid, will continue till the time that our policy markers realise the harm they are causing to this nation. My humble plea is that, we embark on a comprehensive educational reform focusing on redesigning the curriculum from the basic school to the tertiary institutions. The government should direct the focus of education in this country, there should be a clear roadmap as to the educational progression of the Ghanaian student. Our education should be design to suit our manpower needs. More emphasis should be on practical real life experiences as against the bookish “babadie” type of education that renders a first class student useless in the job market. It takes leadership that thinks about the future of this country and not those who think of their parochial needs, to be able to carry up this task. This economy needs to be expanded, more jobs should be created and our graduates should add value to themselves. All this will go a long way to help deal with the current problem of unemployment that we face as a country. Until such a time, I can say with great conviction that each year, by the end of July, most national service personnel will be asking themselves the same question that others before them have asked ... “Where do I go from here?”