By Malek Arol Dhieu
It is high time Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) should be abolished countrywide. Since its inception, ALP does not produce competent products.
It produces scholars who remain semi-literate for the rest of their lives. They have low level of self-expression, reading, writing and office work, making people wonder for what they are.
What makes it worse is that, ALP schools are mixed up with middle-aged and young adults. There is no specific age set for ALP schools. To make it clearer, the young and the middle-aged students are taught by the same teachers who teach in other primary schools that go for 8 years, but when the students are rated later, those who go for 8 years become far much better than those in ALP, including the young students. This forces people to ask questions.
The same scholastic materials, teachers, environment, and calendar, but ALP schools still produce rotten products, why? The problem may be from the syllabuses or academic years, or both. The syllabuses may be too shallow to put ALP students in the bucket of educational system in South Sudan. Or the 4 years meant for ALP students to finish primary school are too few to make them acquire what should be acquired in the entire primary school level. It is not the number of years that should be reduced for mature students, but it is the coursework and passing marks that should be raised for them. But there is no need to do that as it goes against the format of education.
“Anything that is accelerated does not have a value”. Take, for instance, vegetables that are imported from Uganda and Kenya. They are sped up by fertilizers to grow as fast as possible. But when the fruits are harvested and taken for sale, they do not have the quality as they do not taste like the vegetables that have followed the natural pattern of growth.
Even when you accelerate a car, there are a lot of problems that you may encounter. A tyre may burst and the car will lose control, an engine may become too hot and fail to work, a certain important stuff in the car may fall off and the car breaks down or a traffic police officer may charge the driver with an over speed offense.
Even if my father, who is a primary 3 dropout in 1960s, wants to resume his studies today, I can’t take him to ALP. NEVER, I cannot do such a thing. People say education has no age limit. If it has no age limit, why are aged students given accelerated programs? The only level they should not do is the nursery school level, but the rest of the levels should be mandatory. The format is 8 years in primary school, 4 years in secondary school and 4, 5 or 6 years in the university. Any alteration leads to marara education, which refers to a half-cooked education.
Thank you for reading “Sowing The Seed Of Truth”.