Diaries Of An Oguaa Fisherman: Sorry, Second Lady Can Only Provide Free Shs And Not Chalks

Last week, from the diaries, I painted a picture of the Ghanaian worker who conjures magic before he or she survives the turbulence and the struggles in Ghana but today, an angry wind beckons that makes the situation even dire. The second lady of our Republic, who speaks Fante with great precision to the admiration of the Oguaa People, has bitten very hard.

She was unequivocal in slamming a head teacher for just asking log books, boxes of chalk as well as other teaching and learning material that aids teaching and learning. Her speech that many consider silence would have been better than, has sent many tongues twitching and slamming her in the same measure she gave to the headmistress. Could these critics be justified in their reaction to her utterance or the critics ought to be measuredin their critiques considering the fact that parents and teachers have been ‘over pampered’?

Well, I am not in the least staggered because for close to almost a decade, the drums of free this, free that, in Ghana’s educational system have been playing consistently with great precision while the nation looks on helplessly. A practice that has the proclivity of destroying the entire educational system is being hailed as government’s ‘mercy show’ to the Ghanaian people and we are caught ‘ball watching’?

I am not in the tiniest of arguments condemning social intervention strategies but social intervention strategies that are laced with populism leave much to be desired. Is it by force to distribute sandals, school uniforms to pupils when you have not honoured the payment of capitation grants and provided the basic materials needed for teaching and learning? Is it that the government, if it were a person, would buy a cow for its child to celebrate Christmas when that Child’s school fees haven’t been settled? To what extent have we been able to sustain the distribution of these freebies?

And whenever these drums of freebies are played, there is an unalloyed defence by a section of the Ghanaian populace while the other section for fear of being tagged NPP or NDC keeps mute and watch the action unfold.

Many educationist and experts have taken the back stage for fear of being tagged and have allowed the political parties to dictate the pace of our educational system and howit ought to be run.These happenings in the country will lead to serious cracks and crevices in our educational system than what we are witnessing now.

For now, the second lady, Aunt Matilda has been bold, very bold in slamming the head teacher for asking the tools a workman ought to use to deliver the quality education the nation desires badly for quality manpower injection. This show of ‘this boldness’by the first lady is akin to the boldness exhibited by a driver who says, boarding his vehicle is free but does not want to provide fuel to make the vehicle move. How do we get the people to their destination if the vehicle does not move?How can this be, Aunt Matilda?

And who says that the Headteacher shouldn’t have placed this request on the doorstep of the first lady who is part of government but had to channel the challenges the school was facing through the educational office for solutions. To be brutally frank, the District and Regional Directors of Education just play to the gallery, their voices have been muted. They are as powerless as a mouse in the congregation of the cats. Like Eneke, the bird, in Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, once the hunters have learnt to shoot without missing, she (Eneke) has also learned to fly without perching. The heads have learnt that consistently, their challenges communicated to the District and Regional offices are like fetching water into a basket and so the rarest opportunities they get are during occasions such as what took the first lady to the Eastern Region. Teachers do not have voices; they are literally swallowed almost immediately they pour their hearts out. Governments in this country are lucky that teachers in Ghana are not united to demand what rightfully belongs to them. Behind the scenes, they complain but fail to join forces to communicate the diagnoses they have made about Ghana’s educational system.

When Aunt Matilda became the second lady of this country, did she say that she was furnishing her room using her own salary and allowances? Did she say that government has misused the public funds and that she was going to use her salary to buy the cars she now rides in? Did the government tell her that there is no money and that she has to use her own money to prosecute her activity as the second lady of the Republic? If all these questions have answers that are obvious, why did she slam the headteacher making her feel that she (The headmistress) has asked the unthinkable? Where did the teacher go wrong? Just that I am paid, I should turn into a magician;command chalk from the skies to teach because government that is supposed to do so hasn’t done so?

If the second lady has forgotten, there is a wide disparity between sitting in air-conditioned cars, enjoying fat allowances, issuing instructions and framing policies that have huge implicationson the people who are at the receiving end and being in the classroom in a village somewhere being paid a salary that can barely take you home. If headteachers are unable to ask government that has brought unto itself the responsibility of providing everything for the school, then what can she ask? Why fault the headteacher for asking what she deems important to the teaching and learning process?

In times past, parents were very responsible and participated in the educational process of their wards. At my early age at Oguaa where I had my basic education at Catholic Jubilee School, I could see my parents inspecting my books after school and asking me questions about what is happening in school. My dad came personally to settle my school fees with so much bliss and ecstasy that is akin to when a cat sees a mouse. But these days, parents have shirked their responsibilities because governments have been drumming freebies into their ears. (This is the extent of the pampering but not the fault of the teacher but the making of government)

When government promises to fund basic education but is unable to pay capitation grants that the schools should use; when government owes schools subventions; when governments forget that the basic school is the foundation for Ghana’s educational system and moves with the speed of a hare to implement what is called ‘progressive free Senior High Schools; when government that has arrogated unto itself the ‘one-man thousand’ job of shouldering the entire educational system, such utterances are expected from the second lady of our Republic. It is said that the one whois prepared to kill an elephant in the bush should be ready to carry a huge carcass home.

If government has tacitly told parents to sit on the fence because it is going to do everything, why should you fume at the headteacher?

This moon just shined and my hunger grew hugely for a walk and I have walked.

The writer, Richard Kwadwo Nyarko, is a journalist with JOY 99.7. Email: [email protected] . Like my Facebook page: Richard Kwadwo Nyarko. Twitter: @quajo2009