Here in Britain, it is genuinely hard to know whether education is getting better or getting worse. A lot of both is my impression.

But here's a part of the world where they don't seem to have much doubt. Things in Ghana seem definitely to be getting worse:

The Vice Chancellor of the University College of Education, Winneba, Prof. J. Anamuah -Mensah, has expressed concern about the rapid fall in education in the country and called on all stakeholders to put their hands on the wheel to find a lasting solution to the problem.

The Chancellor observed that, nowadays, when one read or listened to the sort of a English being spoken by university students on campus, the person would begin to wonder whether these students went through the education system before gaining admission to the universities.

Studies have in fact shown that our high school graduates lack basic skills – the ability to read, write a paragraph, do simple computations and engage in critical thinking and problem solving. "Our nation is at risk and will continue to be so if nothing is done to improve the quality of education in this county," he said.

Prof. Anamuah-Mensah who was speaking at the launch of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Nest School Complex in Takoradi last weekend said our education system actually needed a major surgery because most of our schools, especially those in the northern regions, did not have full complement of trained teachers.

He mentioned the high pupil/teacher ratio especially in the urban areas, poor supervision and monitoring, weak management capacity, lack of instructional materials, lack of library services, de-motivated and non committed teachers and poor conditions of service as some of the problems that have bedeviled our educational system, that needed to be addressed.

Prof. Ananuah-Mensah who is also the chairman of the educational review committee, which was appointed by the government to review our education system, said the aforementioned problem, coupled with the fact that about 791,000 Ghanaian children who should have been in school were not showed the kind of depth in deterioration, our education system has sunk.

Looks like a job for Professor Tooley.