GHANA’S ‘FORGOTTEN CHILDREN’.....?

The second Saturday succeeding our arrival in Nalongni promised to stay with me forever. Nalongni is one of a chain of villages in the Mion district in the Northern Region. Despite the National Union of Ghana Students' (NUGS) poor organisation for a well intentioned outreach programme, the team for Nalongni, which I was part of, decided to stay and carry out the aim of the programme as was planned.

This Saturday is a special one for me and as the sunsets, I feel the few steps I took earlier in the day into the past setting along with it, but the children, forgotten children, of the community has without words impressed on me not to let our common account die with the setting sun.

Charles, a primary six young man in his early twenties, wakes me up at the teachers' quarters to prepare for our impending journey to his farm. Without waking my colleagues up I jumped unto his motorbike and he speeds towards the farm. As I sat behind him, I inhaled along with the fast moving air the scent of his sweat on his farm attire which but for the drenching of rain may have seen water for a long time. At this point, my mind travelled into the past. A past when going to farm was not a choice but a necessity. I was more regular in school in the dry season than the rainy season because of farm work. It was awful when I was in it, given the canes that directed my wrong steps, but I remember it today with little horror, if not with gratitude.

Gratitude borne neither out of the canes that directed my steps nor of the scent of the sweat of the numerous bike riders who may have given me a ride to or from the farm; gratitude not borne as a result of the empty stomach I carried around till supper after a rare breakfast nor of the long distance to the riverside for household water..... It is a gratitude borne out of the 'iron will' to succeed which was planted in me as a result of my ordeal. There were times I will pray to God never to let the rainfall. Thank God, He never answered such a prayer, for my woes would have been worst.

Finally, we arrived at Charles' farm which like many rural farms, was far from the residential area due to the threat posed by domestic animals. He proudly takes me round his yam farm while asking me questions about university life. I answered him with all the courage I could muster as my tears try to force their way through the restriction I have so far tried to place in their way. Knowing that, I dared not dream of university ten years ago when I was in a similar situation, different setting, younger, without responsibilities and on someone's farm unlike Charles.

Charles, like some of his colleagues in school, is responsible for his mother, two sisters and a brother. Charles' father died before his eighteenth birthday and was therefore forced to put on adult shoes at a tender age. His half brothers have told him that he will be responsible for his mother and her children and they will also be responsible for their mother and siblings. When the mother became sick, he could not combine his education, the farm and taking care of her and his siblings at the same time and therefore dropped out of school. Without adequate support from his half brothers, he spent most of his time in the farm and on his mother. For about four years Charles did not go to school.

After the day's work, Charles sent me back to the teachers' quarters but not after a meal and gifts of tubers of yam from his previous year's harvest. He was excited not only of the fact that I chose to be on his farm but that I actually surprised him with my knowledge and ability to weed. I have made Charles' day but not mine. How could I be happy when I could almost predict the 'end' of the line in his academic career? How could I be excited when there was a systematic failure which makes it almost impossible for the children of Nalongni, like many other rural communities, to get access to the quality education which is described as a basic right in Section 34:2 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana?

There is one under resourced school in Nalongni. The school along with Nadondo, the community in the immediate North of Nalongni, serves not less than five other communities in the area. However, the school do not have adequate staff, text books and other facilities that are necessary to enhance teaching and learning. There is one three-classroom block which houses the lower primary. An incomplete building houses the upper primary; the Junior High School however is an all-in-thatch structure. School activities come to a halt whenever there are signs of a heavy rain. Although Konkonba is the native language of most of the people in and around Nalongni, the students are forced to write Dangbani, a language foreign to the students and a language whose tutor they do not have. The students among many other things are supposed to write exams on Information and Communication Technology even though they do not have a teacher for the subject. Some of the students have never seen a computer before.

In less than three years, world leaders will have to give accounts on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and how far they have come. Ghana is being patted for her efforts in achieving the MDGs but more needs to be done especially in education. While many children in Nalongni and the surrounding villages are not in school, the school environment is not conducive enough to retain those in school. Some of the female students in the primary and JHS are young mothers. While it is encouraging to know that these 'mothers' are in school, it is worth knowing that some never made it back to school and this is not good news marching towards the achievement of MDG goal 3 i.e. to promote gender equality and empower women. Ghana as a nation must increase its efforts and ensure that rural Ghana gets its share of quality education.

This is a clarion call to all stakeholders to wake up and go to work. Programmes should be geared towards the improvement of education in rural Ghana must initiated if they do not exist and enhanced if already in existence. This will not only provide this great country with adequate and abundant human resources but it will also ensure a reduction of street children and rural-urban migration in the country as most of them are alleged to have migrated from rural Ghana. Ghana is known as a fighter and a trailblazer. Let this country rise up once again and fight against what is wrong and ensure that every child in Ghana, without discrimination, have access to quality education at least at the basic level. God bless our homeland Ghana!

BY: YASSANNAH NURU DEEN

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