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Why WASSCE candidates shouldn't go to university this year

This week we heard Malia Obama will be attending university at Harvard; her parents’ alma mater. While that was no surprise, her decision to delay her first year by taking a gap year was. Pulse journalist Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu looks at what a gap year is and the benefits of one.

 

As 270,000 students graduate from Ghana’s second cycle institutions later this month, one suggestion that they could take up is joining the young Obama by taking a gap year.

There are  a number of reasons why students take a gap year. According to the American Gap Association (yes there is an organisation such as that), a gap is taken in order to “deepen practical, professional, and personal awareness.”

If you look around Ghana and notice young Americans or Europeans either travelling or doing volunteer work, chances are they are on their gap year.

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For them, it may seem like a luxurious option, some of the activities done include travelling, gaining work experience, volunteering for personal growth or quite simply to take a break from teachers. After at least 12 years of continuous academic work, not wanting to jump back immediately can be totally justified.

In Ghana, a lot of students take gaps; however not for the reasons stated above. The main reasons are because of financial constraints or to rewrite examinations. So they spend the year off working to gather more money or in remedial schools. However many students are being encouraged to take the gap year voluntarily.

As the median age for high school graduates continues to drop, university tutors in Ghana complain about first year students being ‘childish.’ In the past, freshmen at Ghana’s universities tended to be much older than they are today. A general late start of education and a longer secondary school system ensured that apart from a few whiz kids, freshmen were well into their twenties when they got to university campuses. This is no longer the case as children start school very early and graduate while they are still teens.

While there has been no research to back the claim of childishness, it is easy to see how the depth of understanding, experience and behaviour will differ in comparison. For many of these students, it will be their first time away from parental or teacher control. They can wear anything they want, sleep at pleasure, go to classes when they want, party all night, experiment with alcohol and sex.So is taking a gap year beneficial? I posed this question to some of my friends who unlike me, delayed university enrollment. Those who were in favour believed it could make one mature, gain experience of how the real world works and generally provided “renewed vigour and focus” for academic work. However those in opposition, said taking time off could lead to long time derailment and a difficulty adjusting to academic life again.

The research conducted in the area appears to be in favour of those who take it. For example, studies conducted at Middlebury College in Vermont and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that undergraduates who had taken a gap year before enrolling in university had, on average, a GPA of 0.1-0.4 higher than would have been expected based on their high school scores.

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It is no wonder that Harvard has seen a 33 percent increase in the number of students who take time off after it begun encouraging the practice explicitly in its admission letters while at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; their number of deferments doubled from 2009 to 2010 according to the Council on International Educational Exchange.

For a gap year to truly have its intended effects, Jeffrey Selingo, renowned author on higher education says; “it needs to be a transformative event, quite distinct from anything that students have experienced before."

Selingo suggests meaningful work that encapsulates one’s interests such as interning in the field you have chosen to study, volunteering; traveling with the aim of broadening one’s scope; or a combination of all.

Catching your breath after high school is really important, I believe it would have been great experience for me. Comparing myself to my friends, I could totally see the sort of difference it makes to just chill out for a year. It is important for Ghanaian universities to encourage students to step into the world before they enroll with them. It gives one a clearer sense of the path they intend to follow and enriches the early stages of their life.

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