Governor Frederick Guggisberg, His Second Coming.

The Second Coming of Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg

Brigadier General Frederick Gordon Guggisberg (Education is the keystone of progress).

“We are annually turning out a mass of semi-educated youths and have made no provision for the training of leaders. This is a most serious state of affairs, for, without the willing and efficient co-operation of African Leaders, in thought, industries and the professions, we shall not be able fulfil the sacred trust imposed on us-” the well-being and development of peoples not yet able to stand by themselves”. Frederick G. Guggisberg.

Guggisberg’s Background
Frederick Guggisberg was born on July, 20 1869, in Galt, Ontario, Canada, as a second-generation descendant of an immigrant from Berne, Switzerland.

Frederick Guggisberg was 4 years old when he lost his father, (Frederich Guggisberg (1840-1873).

Gordon’s mother, Dora Louise Wilson, met and married a visiting British Naval officer, Admiral Ramsey Dennis in Toronto in 1875.

The family left for England in 1879.
After receiving education at Burney’s school, near Portsmouth, Gordon attended the Royal military academy in Woolwich in 1887. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1889

Captain Gordon Guggisberg was employed by the colonial office on a special survey the Gold Coast colony and Ashanti, from1902 to 1908. Guggisberg worked in Nigeria’s Land surveyor's department (1909 to 1913). He came back to the Gold Coast in 1914, as the director of Gold Coast Public Works.

During WWII, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Guggisberg was deployed in France. He rose to the rank of Brigadier-General in 1917 as the commander of the 170th infantry brigade.

After WWII, Lord Milner, the secretary of State for the colonies, offered Brigadier Guggisberg the Governorship of the Gold Coast.

Guggisberg’s Mission
Guggisberg felt it was his calling to grow the natives of Gold Coast into technocrats and leaders capable of managing the country, after British rule. He always believed that only a lack of opportunity had prevented the African from reaching intellectual development comparable to that of the European.

Guggisberg arrived in Accra, in October, 1919 with the motto, “Education is the keystone of Progress.

Guggisberg came to meet a Gold Cast educational system that had several flaws, which could impede the country’s progress.

(1) Many primary schools were being conducted by untrained teachers. Guggisberg estimated the educational levels of these untrained teachers to be between Primary class 6 and Middle form 1.

“Accepting the fact that we must eventually provide both secondary schools and university, our chief task today lies in increasing the efficiency of education in our primary schools sufficiently to ensure a flow of suitably educated scholars to the higher institutions tomorrow. It is obvious, therefore, that the first step to be taken is to raise the educational standard of African teachers for the primary schools”

(2) Most of the primary schools did not offer character training.

Character training promotes virtues like honesty, respectfulness, punctuality, reliability, temperance, thrift, self-control, accountability, obedience, cleanliness, etc., to help individuals and societies flourish

“Education is the Keystone of progress: mix the materials badly, omit the most important, and the arch will collapse; omit character training from education and progress will stop”.

(3) Lack of Trade and technical schools.
The contempt with which the literate African, educated-usually semi-educated in a primary school, clad in European clothes, regard all forms of manual labor. To go into any school in the Gold Coast and ask the boys the question: “what are you going to be when you leave school?”. Ninety percent will answer, “A clerk sir”- or A teacher,” for the vast majority of teachers had little notion of the dignity of labor as the clerks. There are three steps to fight this evil: (1) to make artisans out of educated Africans-thus invading the sacred precincts of the clerks! (2) to extend the facilities for technical instructions throughout the country, and (3) to introduce character training.

“Higher education by itself will not solve the problem of the Gold Coast. It must be accompanied by a better system of training in handicrafts, agriculture and all trades that go to provide for the necessities of a community. The education of the brain, and the training of the hand, each accompanied by the Moulding of the mind, must proceed together if success is to be sure”.

(4) School enrolment for girls was very low.

“Nothing more detrimental to the progress of the African race can be imagined than the present system of educated husbands and illiterate wives. There can be no civilization if the women of the race are left uneducated”.

(5) Lack of higher institutions of learning. There was no university, only a few missions' secondary schools were operational in the colony at the time, he took over.

“It is highly important however, that we should, ASAP, provide some facilities for higher education locally, so as to obviate the necessity for Africans proceeding to England”.

Summarizing the situation, Guggisberg said, “we are annually turning out a mass of semi-educated youths and have made no provisions for the training of leaders. This is a most serious state of affairs, for, without the willing and efficient co-operation of African leaders, in thoughts, industries, and the professions, we shall not be able to fulfil the sacred trust imposed on us- the well-being and development of people not yet able to stand by themselves”.

Financing Educational reforms.
Education is not Cheap
To ensure efficiency. We must have a far greater and a far better educated and trained staff of teachers than we have at present. This demand additional revenue generation.

We must increase our revenue and the only way we can do this is to increase our trade, for it is from our trade and custom duties derived therefrom that our revenue comes.

That is why trade and those things on which our trade depends- agriculture, forestry, roads, railways and harbors - assume for the moment such great importance from the point of view of education.

Guggisberg introduced his 10-year development plan to the nation.

On November 17, 1919, Guggisberg presented a ten-year-development plan covering the period from 1919, to 1929, for the Gold Coast.

The 10-year plan focused on building infrastructure that would promote growth of the Gold Coast economy and give it economic advantage in the competitive world.

To improve the economic infrastructure that shall support his radical changes in education, Guggisberg constructed Railways (168 km to the 430km which existed in 1919), Roads (5430km to existing ones), Harbor (Takoradi,1921-1928; inaugurated April 3rd, 1928), for the movement of goods and minerals.

Guggisberg construction of roads and railways, boosted the export of cocoa; cocoa plantations became opened to wheeled transport. The export of cocoa, for foreign exchange, doubled. (from 50,000 tons in 1914 to 200,000 tons in 1924)

As a result of Guggisberg’s educational reforms, Class sizes were reduced; girls’ coeducation improved, new training colleges were constructed; Local history, and folklore were introduced into the education curriculum. Also, physical education and organized sporting activities were introduced.

Guggisberg built the Gold Coast hospital at Korle Bu, Accra (October 9, 1923) to train future African doctors. In 1974, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the construction of Korle Bu hospital, the Acheampong regime honored Guggisberg with the erection of a large statue in front of the Korle Bu hospital.

He also founded Achimota College (1927) to train local Africans, as teachers and educationists. The system of Higher Education, consisting of Achimota, first of all as a university college-and then as a university at which students will be fitted in a gradually increasing degree for responsible duties in trades, industries, and professions- in conjunction with the formation of local institutions for medical and engineering training.

The whole aim is to obviate the necessity for Africans proceeding to Europe to secure their higher education.

Guggisberg 8-year-term as Governor of the Gold Coast colony, came to an end in April, 1927, after having successfully transformed education in the Gold Coast.

Three years after leaving the Gold Coast, Guggisberg died on 21st April 1930 in the English coastal town of Bexhill-on-sea, at the age of 60 years.

Before his death, he confided to his close friends that it was his hope to return to Africa, one day, to try to do some more work for the Africans.

“As you know, my heart is in Africa, and I believe that away from the trammels of the colonial office, there is opportunity for me to do something useful for the natives of Africa”

Guggisberg’s Second Coming.
(Digitalization is a game changer for local governments and communities)

Thirty-three years after Guggisberg’s death, a boy was born in Northern Ghana. The now 61-year-old Ghanaian native, the champion of Ghana’s digitalization program, wants to be in the Driver’s seat, for the next 8 years, to solidify Ghana’s position in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Listen to him as he makes his case.

People ask, the vice president is always launching an App; what has that got to do with the economy?

Look at a company like Uber Technologies, inc, their one Uber App for trans ride-hailing has the value of 163 billion USD (over twice Ghana’s GDP of 75billion USD). Microsoft, one company that builds Apps, is valued at 3 trillion USD. That is 40 times the value of Ghana’s economy.

In this Fourth industrial revolution you must understand the link between digitalization and the economy. We are in the Fourth Industrial revolution, if you do not join it, you are going to be left behind. This is where the world is going!

Apple is worth 3.5 trillion USD (46 times Ghana’s GDP) One company, because they are building Apps that we all use.

As you enter the Fourth industrial revolution, you are either going to be the developers of these Apps, or the users of these Apps.

We have to make that choice; if you want to empower your local economy and be a full-participant in the Fourth industrial revolution, you have to be Developing many of these Apps. This the thinking behind Ghana card, Momo, Digital address system, Ghana.gov services; E-health, etc., We are going to make sure Ghana is not left behind in this digital revolution that we are seeing. We need to see more local empowerment in this phase.

Among the digitalization program introduced by Dr. Bawumia are the Digital address system, and the My Credit score Ghana system to expand the scope of credit referencing systems, and guide the banking corporations to weigh the risk and benefits of offering loan facilities to bank customers after evaluating their credit information.