KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

END OF SECOND SEMESTER EXAMINATION, 2019/2020

FIRST YEAR

ENGL 158: COMMUNICATION SKILLS

INDEX NUMBER: 8460319

PROGRAMME OF STUDY: BSC. NURSING

YEAR: ONE (1)

 Importance Of Communication In Human Life.

According to Wikipedia “communication is the act of conveying meanings from one entity

or group to another through the use of mutually understood signs, symbols and semiotic rules”.

Communication must be effective, that is relaying information that get a point across either

through verbal speech or other methods. In today’s world, there are varying methods

communication takes place. Humans communicate with others not only by face-to-face

communication, but also by giving information via the Internet and printed products such as

books and newspapers. It is impossible to imagine of human life without communication.

Communication is deeply entwined with human existence. Communication facilitates the spread

of knowledge and forms relationships between people.

First of all, communication helps to spread knowledge and information among people.

Human existence and survival have been possible because of knowledge and information passed

from generation to generation from the beginning of time. Information gathered from ancient,

art, contemporary, culture, digital, economic, intellectual, military, oral, political, world and

other areas of history has helped molded today’s societies. Information, ideas and opinions are

shared through communication means. This is often done through the use of explanations,

descriptions, summaries, analyses, anecdotes and illustrations.

Moreover, communication is the foundation of all human relationship. At first, strangers

start talking and getting to know each other, and then the relationships are formed when they

have more interaction and communication. As the saying goes, “a healthy relationship, is one

with effective communication”. Communicating helps people to express their ideas and feelings,
and it, at the same time, helps us to understand emotion and thoughts of others. As a result, we

will develop affection or hatred toward other people, and positive or negative relationships will

be created.

Effective leadership depends upon effective communication. Without the means of

communication there will be no leadership and followership structure in society. Two-way

communication helps in effective communication. Leaders get to know the demand of this

followers through communicating. The election process is one important form of communication

in modern societies; where aspiring societal leaders get to read their pronunciamento and the

population through voting communicate their preference.

Lastly, all human transactions become possible only through communication. It is the life-

blood of every business organization. Especially in today’s globalized market economy, effective

communication is vital to the success and survival in any organization. Moreover, in this age of

specialization, planning, production, sales, advertising, finance and welfare of a business are

handled by different departments. In the absence of effective communication, there would be a

serious problem of co-ordination among these departments and would be chaos and confusion in

the organization.

From the start of human existence communication has taken many different forms but still

a profound part of human life and survival. The above points among many others show the great

importance of communication to man and communication has become indispensable today

notwithstanding the different forms it takes.

The Assertion That COVID-19 Is A Necessary Evil To The Educational Sector Of Ghana.

Ghana confirmed its first case of coronavirus on March 12, 2020 and has since reported a

total of 11,964 cases and 54 deaths as of June 15,2020. In a bid to keep the rapidly spreading

virus at bay, the government announced a series of measures including banning of mass

gatherings and shutting down all borders and schools. The COVID-19 pandemic is first and

foremost a health crisis. Recently, this crisis has put a dilemma on policymakers to keep schools

closed or re-opening them. The assertion that COVID-19 is a necessary evil to the educational

sector of Ghana is true.

Going to school is the best public policy tool available to raise skills. But going to school

is simply impossible in this time of a global pandemic. Hence the need to introduce new means

to continue education. The initiation of methods to continue education such as Tv learning for

SHS, JHS and basic pupils, online teaching on Zoom, WhatsApp and Telegram platforms for

tertiary students and assessments of student through online Virtual classroom platforms were

introduced.

Teaching moved online, on an untested and unprecedented scale. The introduction of

distance learning to help complete the remaining curricula was brought to solve the problem.

Rightly so, the ministry of education is worried that relying exclusively on online strategies will

benefit only children from better-off families. Lack of access to technology or good internet

connectivity is an obstacle to continued learning for children in rural areas and from

disadvantaged families. This has shown that as much as we focus on the traditional forms of
education, we have to focus and develop more modern forms of education as well as increasing

both the network coverage and speed so those in deprived communities can also benefit.

Students assessments are also moving online, with a lot of trial and error and uncertainty

for everyone. The closure of schools not only interrupts the teaching and the learning process

across the country; the closure also coincides with a key assessment period and many exams

have been postponed or cancelled, including the BECE and WASSCE and many universities and

colleges are replacing traditional examinations with online assessment tools. This period has

shown that there should be and could be a more robust form of assessing students’ abilities and

not limiting it to the more traditional methods of assessment. This would give students the task to

do a lot of research works and by so doing, knowledge is able to stick afterwards.

The national lockdown of educational institutions has caused major and unequal

interruption of the learning process and has exposed the stark regional, social and economic

inequalities in Ghana’s educational system. What can be done to mitigate these negative

impacts? Schools need resources to rebuild the loss in learning, once they are opened. How these

resources are used and how to target the children who were especially hit hard, is an open

question. This period has also shown the need to considered other forms of educations such as

homeschooling and online school and not limit education in the country only to going to the

traditional form of school.