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08.03.2011 Feature Article

Is President Mills heading for doom?

Is President Mills heading for doom?Is President Mills heading for doom?
08.03.2011 LISTEN

Forty-five years after his overthrow, kwame Nkrumah's name continues to resonate within and without the country.

In December 1999, listeners of the BBC voted Nkrumah 'Africa's Man of the Millenium'. This was not because he was a magician, but because his legacy continues to benefit millions of Africans home and abroad.

The current president of the Republic of Ghana, Prof. J.E.A. Mills, has begun his third year as President, and it will be interesting to know the sort of legacy he'd leave behind when he eventually leaves office.

Though some achivements have been made during the over two years he has been in office, President Mills is doomed to a vague and uncertain legacy if he doesn't do more to address the basic concerns of majority of Ghanaians.

An enduring legacy

The good news for the President is that he still has time to build a lasting legacy for himself. An imperishable legacy. Today, the name and works of Nkrumah survive, despite attempts by the National Liberation Council (NLC) to dishonour his legacy in the aftermath of the 1966 coup.

Nkrumah's inspiring effect on the black man, his singular contributions to the liberation of Ghana and the African continent and his unsurpassed achievements as President of Ghana continue to impact the life of many an African today.

Ghanaians, especially, continue to benefit immensely from Nkrumah's aggressive development of infrastructure and his improvement of education.

In the opinion of this writer, President Mills, like Nkrumah, can build an indestructible legacy for himself, by undertaking development projects that will positively impact the lives of majority of Ghanaians.

A curious look at the country will reveal that there are only a few things more important to Ghanaians than than access to quality education and good health care. And in a country where literacy stands at about 59.5 %, and people continue to die in childbirth and from diseases such as malaria and cholera, President Mills has an inescapable responsibility to ensure that Ghanaians have access to quality education and healthcare.

Education, especially, deserves special and urgent attention.

Poor educational system

Many years ago, Ghana's education system was regarded the best in West-Africa. Kwame Nkrumah as president, had augmented the educational structures put in place by the British, by building several schools across the country, including tertiary institutions such as GIJ, UCC and KNUST.

Prominent intellectuals such as the President Mills himself, Busumuru Kofi Annan, Prof. Frimpong Boateng, Mrs. Bamford Addo, Justice Georgina Woods, Mr. Emile Short, Mr Ransford Tetteh, Mr. Amissah-Arthur and Dr. Joyce Aryee are some beneficiaries of that educational system.

These are individuals of impeccable intellectual repute: Busumuru Kofi Annan remains the first and only West-African to have become the United Nations Secretary General. Emile Short also, has returned after serving as judge with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. Professor Frimpong Boateng until recently had been Ghana's only heart surgeon. Needless to talk about President Mills' achievements.Ghana has, however, had a phenomenal decline in respect of educational standards. Our educational institutions continue to produce sub-standard scholars, due to several factors including the lack of basic imperatives for quality education such as competent and motivated teachers, infrastructure, equipment and facilities such as classrooms, textbooks and computers.

Public basic schools worst affected

Public basic schools, more so those in deprived areas of the country, are the worst affected. We continue to hear news of basic schools in this country scoring 0% in the BECE every year. These children fail not always because they lack educational facilities or aren't intelligent but sometimes because they are being taught by unmotivated and in some cases, lazy teachers who don't give their all.

In the words of William Ward, ” the mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” Unfortunately,what we have in our public basic schools are mostly mediocre teachers who do not do not give their all. As a result, many students in basic public schools, more so those in deprived areas of the country, fail to make it past J.H.S level.

In 2010, for instance, several basic public schools in the country scored zero percent in the Basic Education Certificate Exams (BECE).

According to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, ”ten Junior High Schools (JHS) in the Agona West Municipality and Agona East District of the Central Region had none of their students obtaining between aggregate six and 36 to gain admission into Senior High Schools.” Zero per cent effectively!

In Twifo-Heman-Lower Denkyira District, ”fourteen schools recorded zero percent.”

In Hohoe, ”fifteen basic schools scored zero percent.”

In the ”Jomoro District Five schools scored zero percent.” The list of schools that recorded zeros goes on and on, rather shamefully.

The zeros recorded by the above schools and several others in the country effectively denied several hundreds of students the opportunity to gain admission into secondary schools.

Dashed hopes, shattered dreams

Fundamentally, thousands of children who would have become doctors, engineers, accountants lawyers, journalists and so on, are forced to either learn trades or resort to menial jobs to make a living. The rich in society have no problem in this regard. They continue to enroll their wards in private basic schools where the quality of education is superior, by miles, to what exists in public basic schools. The poor, on the other hand, lack the economic capability to enroll their children in private schools. They have no choice, therefore, to continue to enroll their children in public basic schools where education is virtually dead and children are being turned into illiterates.

Essentially, children from rich backgrounds go ahead to obtain good education which propels them to great heights. While many children from poor homes have to make do with public basic education which invariably lands them in not very good places. Some of them become frustrated and they go ahead to smoke 'wee��� and engage in immoral and illegal activities such as prostitution and robbery.

To state that public basic education in this country is dead, is stating the obvious- and President Mills will be building an indestructible legacy for himself if he aggressively takes steps to resurrect it.

President Mills' responsibility

If the professor can transform public basic education in the country by making public basic schools as good as private basic schools, many children who would have been lost in the 'forest of illiteracy and uncertainty', would remember him as the President whose intervention made it possible for them to acquire quality education.

He would be remembered, even decades after he has left the Presidency, as the man who revolutionised public basic education in this country.

John Kennedy admonishes us to ” think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”

The President Mills, therefore, has a responsibility to make quality education accessible to every citizen of this country and not just a privileged few.

Truth be told, President Mills' government has made attempts at improving education in the country: From the distribution of hundreds of thousands of school uniform and the building of hundreds of class room blocks across the country to the recent cutting of sods for the construction of two new universities in the Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions of the country, something is being done to improve education.

We must acknowledge, however, that first, special attention is not being paid to public basic education which requires urgent and decisive action. Second, building classrooms and giving out free school uniforms alone is not enough to improve basic public education in this country.

The development of educational infrastructure as well as the provision of free books, uniforms and food, must go hand in hand with a drastic improvement in the quality of teaching in our basic schools. If not, efforts at improving public basic education in the country will be futile.

Incompetent and uncommitted teachers must be sacked and replaced with competent and dedicated ones. A drastic improvement in conditions of service of teachers is also crucial to improving basic public education in the country. Teachers are literally crying about poor conditions of service and it's high time government paid attention to them.

Conclusion

This writer acknowledges that billions, not millions of dollars, is required to positively transform Ghana's education, more so at the public basic level. It's important however, that President Mills makes every effort to secure whatever amount would be required for that purpose.

If Ghana could collaterise oil to the tune of ten billion dollars for loans in building houses, we must be willing to do more to secure the needed funding for the improvement of education in this country, because according to Solomon Ortiz, ”education makes children less dependent upon others and opens doors to better jobs and career possibilities”.

The benefits of an improved educational system are immeasurable.

The economic success of countries such as South Korea and Singapore, where literacy stands at 97.9% and 92.5%, respectively, is enough indication that countries thrive where they invest in their people.

A good educational sector will produce intelligent individuals who will not only improve the country's workforce but also take advantage of existing opportunities, especially in contemporary science and technology, to drive forward the country's economic growth. If Ghana succeeds in attaining 90 per cent literacy within 20 years, the problems of unemployment and poverty will be greatly reduced, especially when the country has a vibrant private sector that is in dire need of capable human resource.

There have been many Head of States in this country but not all of them are remembered for good reasons. In the words of Donald H. McGannon, ”leadership is action, not position” and President Mills has the opportunity to write his own legacy by undertaking projects that will benefit the majority of Ghanaians rather than a few privileged individuals. The improvement of basic public education in the country is a good way to start.


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