A Letter to GES; ACE, African Centered Solution, Universal, Practical

A thought-provoking poem, a brutal truth about education in Ghana that many of us have yet to come to grips with. From a Ghana teacher’s passion, concern, and determined efforts to write describing societal issues within education, the poem is a warning and a call to duty.

A LETTER TO GES
by
Francis Boakye
(a.k.a. Ebetu The Poet)
18: 04: 2025
Dear Ghana Education Service,
May peace find you at your desks,
May strength walk with your every endeavour,
And may wisdom light your path in these testing times.

I remember your footprints, deep and long
Carved since the days of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah,

When your touch shaped boys into men,
And girls into women of purpose.
For this, I bow my head in thanks.
But with respect, I seek your listening ear.
Permit me, to lay bare before you
The bleeding wound of indiscipline
In the heart of our schools
Where structure once stood, chaos now dances.

Where future leaders are moulded,
The mould is cracking.
And the rot is seeping deep,
Deeper than chalk can write.
Let me take you back
To the time when school was school.
When teachers’ glance was instruction,
And their words, law.
When children stood at the mention of “Good morning, Sir,”

And sat only with permission.
When the cane was not a weapon,
But a compass pointing to better ways.
When a teacher’s pocket was empty,
Yet his soul was full
Full of pride, purpose and prestige.
When GES stood firm behind the teacher,
And the home held hands with the classroom.
So, what has changed?
What turned the chalkboard into a battlefield?

What clipped the wings of teachers
And handed them shackles instead?
What made the student a law unto themselves?
Today, students walk into class
With hearts full of contempt
And hands trained not for pens,
But for attack.
Have you heard of the O’Reilly incident?

The stabbed eye?
The blinded child from the Adventist gunshot?

These are not tales, GES
These are screams muffled beneath your silence.

What would you do
If the bleeding eye was your son’s?
If the blinded girl was your daughter?
If the trembling teacher was your spouse
Held hostage by a law meant to protect
But now protects wrongly?
If your own child sat in a classroom
Where fear teaches louder than the curriculum,

Would you still fold your arms?
Why have you kept the pockets of teachers mute,

And worse: stripped them of their voice?
Why is discipline now a taboo
And correction a crime?
Are we building a future or a facade?
Is this the education we fought for?
Where a teacher dares not shape a child,
And a child dares everyone?
We remember the days of Mensah and Dede,
When school was more than books
It was a village shrine of values,
Where children were shaped into gold.
Where the teacher’s word mended homes,
And the school served the nation
As both a wellspring of wisdom
And a fortress of discipline.
GES, I write not to condemn
But to cry out.
The soul of education is fading.
The fire is dim.
And if all hands do not rise now,
The taste of learning will sour forever.
Let us not wait until schools become tombs of silence

And classrooms, corridors of chaos.
The elders say, “If the drumbeat changes, the dance must too.”

The dance is dangerous now
And we must ask:
Will you change the beat?
Or shall we dance ourselves
Into darkness?
We call on all:
GES, parents, chiefs, lawmakers, citizens.
Let us act, and act now.
For if the tree of education dies,
What shelter shall Ghana’s future find?

What has Ghana/Africa schools and universities produced or producing today? Research.

Blacks/Africans are the ‘Original People”, universal; the builders of the first education systems and libraries; and inventors of the sciences, math, philosophy and arts (G. M. James). So, education is nothing new to Africans, which white supremacists would want Africans to it is. If Africans were aware of the historical facts, it would negate white is superior (F. Cress-Welsing).

From what I have seen after teaching in Ghana schools for 11 years (and continued efforts to try to help for change and betterment), and 14 years of observation—

Ongoing neo-colonialism usually at its best (see K. Nkrumah) in controlling the school system via whites’/European hand-outs, “chump-change” (see TTEL- Transforming Teaching, Education & Learning) to play a role in the “dumbing-down” of Ghana.

The absence of well shelved consistently updated high-tech public libraries and a library network throughout Ghana/Africa should also be on the education agenda. Which a good start is negotiating for what is called “mosquito hole” or the “$58 million swimming pool hole” as the National Cathedral is referred to— why not redesign into a library, museum and parking deck. Applicable to the areas of education and tourism. Something to strategize about.

A few youths who have risen above the mediocre, but they oftentimes run into a glass ceiling and yearning to go abroad, which many times not possible and some grow bitter; and the miseducated masses proceed to wallow in poverty and self-hate within the vast mineral rich lands. Question is—why?

An education system that has and is producing many youths who are angry about their employment situations, especially post-university; engraining arrogant-ignorance, lacking professional ethics, selfishly “belly-thinking”, and devising different levels of theft, scams and corruption in many aspects of society as they conceitedly lie and smirk –in the spirit of wicked chieftaincies trading with whites/European chattel slave traders.

This is not nation building, but really “hand-to-mouth survival”. This is where today’s Ghana education has fallen short for decades.

There are serious doable African-Centered Education solutions and they are needed most urgently. Inquire about ACE, or the problem will continue and further exacerbate Ghana/Africa’s societal problems. No need of begging with a tin cup to Europeans via TTEL or European universities. “Reset”. It’s been said, Dr. John Henrik Clarke once stated –There is no European solution for African problems.

References
A Letter to GES by Francis Boakye (a.k.a. Ebetu The Poet) (0540565239). Boakye teaches at Prince of Peace Girls’ Senior High School, Kumasi.

African-Centered Education by Haki Madhubuti and Safisha Madhubuti PhD

Stolen Legacy by G. M. James
The Isis Papers: Keys to The Colors by Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing

Africa Must Unite by Kwame Nkrumah
Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah

African Global Ourstory: An Introduction to African and African Diaspora Studies by K. Makeda Muhammad PhD

Photo: Bell Tower, Ayako, Volta Region, Ghana, Wiki Commons, retrieved April 21, 2025 from: File: School bell tower.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Dr. K. Makeda Muhammad is a ‘Repatriate’ a returnee to Africa via Ghana in 2011. Dr. Makeda’s field of study is Black Studies; Educator, Author, Pan Africanist, first African American recipient of Ghana’s EDUCOM Award, Recipient of community Helping Hands MACPRI Award, Recipient of the Abibitumi Headquarters and Marcus Mosiah Garvey Foundation Citation; Member of Ghana Association of Writers (GAW); Columnist for Modern Ghana Media; and community activist and social media freedom fighter.