Gross domestic knowledge

If the productivity of nations were ever measured in terms of “Gross Domestic Knowledge,” Ghana, undoubtedly, would have taken the first spot in the world. We are champions at that.

Well, let me congratulate my brothers and sisters who have just finished writing the Basic Education Certificate Examination. It has not been easy, I know. You have done well writing exam; Ayekoo!

Once again, we can congratulate ourselves for having wasted more than nine years of our children’s lives – keeping them in school for all these years and teaching them how to do nothing.

We then organize examinations to test what they know, not what they can DO. Oh, what a pity! How useful is letter-writing in English Language to these young ones who cannot produce common toothpick and we would have to import it? How useful are the calculations in Mathematic to people who cannot even produce orange juice? Our children are very knowledgeable, but unequipped and unskilled. They know everything but can do nothing. They score good grades like I did, even in technical and vocational subjects, yet Parliament imports from outside, ordinary chairs.

Why do we even frustrate the future of our own citizens because they did not get a mark in this or that subject? A standardized education, in my humble opinion, should not be one that keeps people from their destinies but should give them leverage to fulfil their dreams. What we have been calling standardization is nothing but limitations. Failing and frustrating the destinies of young people is no standard anywhere else in the world; having standards in education should be about building the learners to have minimum productive capacity to contribute to economic activities and upon which they can survive daily.

Oh, what shall I say? It aches my heart that we have wasted these many years of the lives of our children teaching them how to produce nothing; and we expect the dollar not to hit 12.10 or rank worse as the 147^th currency in the world?

Oh, how I love that great book, the Bible, which says in Proverbs 22:6 “Train …” Our duty is not to teach our children but to TRAIN them. Are we training them in our schools? “Train up a child the way he should go ….” Are we training up our children the way they should go – that when they grow they can produce and be useful citizens or we are teaching them to become jobless-unproductive graduates? Oh, if I have the chance, I would sue mother Ghana for having wasted nine-to-twelve years of my life teaching me how to do nothing.

In my article titled “What is quality education?” I explained what quality education is. Quality education is the system of teaching and learning which prepares the learner for his/her future. For us to evolve as a continent, we need an African education which trains the African child to be productive. The first commandment God gave to man is to be fruitful or productive. We need to train up our children to be productive.

Let me end on this note, to remind us all, including educationists and policy makers that nowhere in the world is a nation’s growth measured by Gross Domestic Knowledge. It is only by Gross Domestic Product. And for us to grow as a continent, it’s overdue we urgently attend to making reforms in our educational curriculum – to teach and train learners to become productive. There is nothing as important as this in order to attain economic growth in Ghana and Africa.

BY Rich Akpalu

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