Ghana woke up to the shocking news of the death of a seventy year old man because of allegedly no bed in all the seven hospitals he was taken to for medical attention. This has spark and resurrected debate about our health care system in Ghana.Some people are putting the blame on the nurses and doctors and others too on the Government. 
My greatest worry is that we have move away from cash and carry where our health delivery system is supported by health insurance such that minor ailments and emergencies are to be catered for under the national health insurance scheme. Is there anything we are not doing well or haven't put in place? This is a question I leave for the health experts to interrogate.
However, my main focus as an educationist is that, if healthcare delivery which is deemed to have an insurance package in order to make it accessible to all is going through this challenge or challenges, then what about our educational system especially at the second cycle level which has recently in September 2017 been made free so as to make it also accessible to students from poor financial background?
Are we going to witness a similar event where headmasters and teachers can turn parents and students away from their schools because of no-desk? Are we going to see our young roaming the streets without secondary school education? This is bound to happen and if it happens then it will defeat the United Nation's sustainable development goal 4 which is provision of quality education for all citizens. Nonetheless I am confident that this is already happening in some of our schools. The reason is quite simple. The implementation of the free SHS policy led to an exponential increase in the number of students into our public senior high schools. Headmasters of some of our schools have had to improvise some facilities in order to accommodate these students. it is obvious that others who could not improvised might have turned some students away from their schools.
An outsider of the educational system may argue that this shouldn't happen because there is a central body that place students in our schools and that schools are made to present the number of student population they will require base on the facilities they have. But is that what is on the ground? Even if everything is perfect as planned then it means that potential students who could not be placed by the central body- computerised school selection and placement system(CSSPS) are likely to be turned away because of no desk. 
Taking a critical look at the number of students who have taken the 2018 BECE exams and are likely to be placed in our senior high schools, this problem of no desk is bound to occur.With the increased number of students in our senior high schools, the big question is what will happen to our tertiary institutions? There will be a carry over of this problem into our tertiary institutions from the year 2020 unless educational authorities design pragmatic ways of dealing with the situation. This is where l commend the University of Ghana for taking the lead to strengthen its distance learning centers in the regions in anticipation of the increase in students enrollment.
A distance education programme enable students to be hooked unto a learning management system where they can access any learning material from their own comfort zones. The argument form private tertiary institutions that the University of Ghana is trying to play them out of the market is ill timed since the former is only being proactive in ensuring that the bulk of students at the SHS level who will graduate in 2020 will also gain addmission and receive tertiary education.
Taking a critical look at the number of students who have taken the 2018 BECE exams and are likely to be placed in our senior high schools, this problem of no desk is bound to occur.With the increased number of students in our senior high schools, the big question is what will happen to our tertiary institutions? There will be a carry over of this problem into our tertiary institutions from the year 2020 unless educational authorities design pragmatic ways of dealing with the situation. This is where l commend the University of Ghana for taking the lead to strengthen its distance learning centers in the regions in anticipation of the increase in students enrollment.A distance education programme enable students to be hooked unto a learning management system where they can access any learning material from their own comfort zones. The argument form private tertiary institutions that the University of Ghana is trying to play them out of the market is ill timed since the former is only being proactive in ensuring that the bulk of students at the SHS level who will graduate in 2020 will also gain addmission and receive tertiary education.
As a student of distance education and e-learning, I will be so much hurt if any student is turned away because of no desk in a school. This is due to the fact that in this 21st century face-to-face contact with a teacher or an educational facility alone is not used to determine the attendance of an individual in a school. With the use of appropriate learning management systems(LMS), individuals can enroll in a school and go through a curriculum from start to finish without stepping a foot or sitting on any physical desk in the school.
The no bed syndrome in our hospitals should be a wake up call for our educational authorities to look up to e-learning else the educational system will soon be plague with a no desk syndrome.
