Complaints about the messed up system we’re running, which we’ve decided to call education; is nothing new. Every year, people fail exams in droves, and we continue to churn out graduates who have no idea how things are done in the real world.

Proper measures are rarely implemented to halt this slide. Recently, we learnt the revolutionary new idea is to teach students in the local languages. I don’t know what that’s expected to achieve but more grease to their elbows.

In more bad news, a survey conducted by Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessment EGRA/EMGA in Ghana shows that 90% of basic school students cannot read, or comprehend what they read.

The survey was conducted in 2013, sampling 7,923 pupils across the country. The report found that only 3.7% pupils could read and understand; whilst only 1.8% could read proficiently and understand.

Conversely, a whopping 4,148 pupils, representing 50.7%, cannot read at all, while 3,344 representing 43.8% could read few words without understanding them.

Obviously this should be alarming, even if I think the numbers looked a little skewered. The bottom line is there is a problem, and we’re nowhere near even trying to start looking for practical solutions.