I-CAN-GHANA

(Speech delivered to a durbar of the chiefs and people of Biriwa at the 2018 http://ndapak.com/category/featured-projects/ Okyir Festival, 20th October 2018)

Salutations:

There is a popular Chinese saying:

“If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.”

Education is often simply defined as “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school.”

But the Fante word for education is deeper. It is “adzesua,” which is composed of two words: adze (something) and sua (learning). Every human being created by God can learn. We learn every day from the things around us, our environment, our circumstances, etc. But “what” we learn is the question. What are we learning? It is what we learn that determines who or what we become and how relevant we are to ourselves, our community and our nation.

The good news for the Ghanaian is that the Constitution provides for free education. The basic education was made mandatorily free right from the beginning. Secondary and tertiary education were to be made “progressively free,” i.e. depending on the ability of the government to make it free. It took us almost 25 years to provide free secondary education, but we finally achieved it. Mr. Government we are grateful.

But, Mr. Government, if you thought we were going to thank you and wait for another quarter of a century to demand more, then you have made a huge mistake. We know that you are struggling with Free SHS. The cost of it is stupendous. And now you are forced to Double Track, so that today we have Mfantsipim Green and Mfantsipim Gold. When I went to school Mfantsipim was simply Red and Black. But that’s ok. But we like it. We like the fact that you are struggling to do something for the Ghanaian. And so just before you begin to be satisfied that you have done something for us, I would want to take your mind to the line in the Methodist Hymn titled “What Shall I render?” which says “I take the gifts He has bestowed and humbly ask for more.”

And as is said in common parlance, “Oliver Twist asked for more.”

And so we must begin to say to Government, you have given us the free secondary education that the Constitution asked for. But we need MORE: When are you going to grow and improve the quality of that education? Do we have to another 25 years? We have not even started thinking about free tertiary education. But we will get there.

It is said that the world is a ‘global village.’ We don’t live on an island, surrounded only by water. Even if we did, we are still not alone. The rise and expansion of communication and the internet means that whether we like it or not, whether we realise and acknowledge it or not, we are competing with the rest of the world. Any job that our governments or companies working in Ghana hire and pay non-Ghanaians for, is a job lost to a Ghanaian. And so we are competing and being whipped at the competition even without knowing that we are competing.

When we have to choose schools for our children we tend to look at the schools mummy and daddy went to and feel proud that our children are going to the same schools. Is that all? We still argue and debate ourselves on the schools we attended, when those schools have not advanced one bit, since we left there. If you child goes back to your former school 10 or 20 years since you left that school, you should not be proud in showing him or her how things have remained the same. It means the school has failed to change and improve.

The time when we raised our children to become “local champions” should be over. You are either raising your child to “get a job” or to “run the world.” They are competing with children in other countries who have been learning computer coding since they were three years old. In the world today, you are either at the table or you are on the menu.

That is why an education system that terminated at JHS simply because the parents could not afford to pay the SHS fees, was not just backward: it was criminal. Every year, we literally thrust out there, thousands of brilliant young children simply because their parents could not afford to pay. We think that they will become our drivers, etc. But today, several cars are computerized. In fact, now there are driver-less cars. We must grow our people.

I have argued that every Ghanaian child deserved the opportunity to have Free SHS, whatever the quality of that education is. I vehemently disagreed with those who said we should wait to improve the standards of education before we made it free. But that is no excuse to slip on ensuring that the quality that is being given to us for free is cheap.

Goal 4 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals focuses completely on Education. Under it, Education must ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning.

Whether we accept it or not, we are still implementing in substance the Guggisberg-inspired education system and structure (based on his 16 Principles of Education which became the basis of the 1925 Education Ordinance). Even then, he had argued that literacy alone was inadequate. He said his reforms would include character building, thrift and temperance. He said: “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.”

This was in 1925. Yet in its implementation, the education system just to equipped us with just enough to become civil servants in His/Her Majesty’s civil service. The fact that we are struggling to break out of the shackles of the well-intentioned by completely archaic Guggisberg-inspired education systems should be a matter of shame to us. The numeracy and literacy that Guggisberg inspired, alone are not enough. We must demand in our schools, modern, quality education, designed to help all children reach their full potential and enter society as full and productive citizens.

In February 2016, the Washington DC area Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and Brussels-based Education International (EI), released a joint statement in support of the SDGs and the pursuit of quality education for all. In that statement they defined quality education in the following terms:

“…one that focuses on the whole child – the social, emotional, mental, physical, and cognitive development of each student regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or geographic location. It prepares the child for life, not just for testing.“

And so the right to education guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be only the right to access education (which Free SHS gives) but the right to receive education of good quality. For education to be whole, it must be (i) Available, (ii) Accessible, (iii) Acceptable and (iv) Adaptable.

Until we achieve these 4 A’s we have to accept that we have not attained the goal of quality education.

I went to Mfantsipim School which has the motto “Dwin Hwɛ Kan.” This deep Fante has been loosely translated into English as “Think and Look Ahead.” But that does not cut it. That Fante statement is too deep to have an exact English equivalent. The Fante states that the faculty that is used to think (the brain) can in and of itself also see (has eyes.) That complete mental faculty can ascertain what is useless, backward or sideways, and reject them. That complete mental faculty can also see what’s ahead and forwards and reach out for it. Clearly, those eyes are not what everyone can see buried in our heads, and that with which you see and look at things. Thus your brain is incomplete if it cannot do all of these things at the same time and in one fell swoop. I suggest that every brain has that ability, but it is quality education that will bring it out and shape and sharpen it for full effect. “Adezua papa na ᴐma ye tum Dwin Hwɛ Kan.”

Our schools have to help our children to Dwin Hwɛ Kan. God gifted us with that ability captured in the Fante phrase. Our education must be geared towards liberating that ability to Dwin Hwɛ Kan, and thereby liberate us from the things that have held us back and down. It must liberate us from still being tied to the shackles of colonialism and neo-colonialism, even when the former colonial master physically left our shores 6 decades ago. Without Dwin Hwɛ Kan we will only think, but only of ourselves and our immediate circumstances and completely fail, refuse or neglect to consider our future and plan for it. When people express the regret and say that they think we are worse off than when we were under the colonialists, I weep because it simply means we have failed to Dwin Hwɛ Kan, and instead “yɛ dwin hwɛ yɛn akyir.” That is why our youth would prefer to die crossing either the Sahara or the Mediterranean just to go to Europe than staying here. There is nothing for them. And it is not as if they are guaranteed a better life there. Several of them are among the poorest in those countries.

Something has to change; and quickly.

The fact that the prices of almost everything we produce for export is not determined by us, but by the persons who purchase it or markets that they have contrived, shows us that our literacy and numeracy education isn’t getting us where we ought to be. The fact that we do not have the ability to chart our own path, and for the most part must develop on the basis of handouts from others, shows that our literacy and numeracy education is holding us back. Numeracy and literacy alone won’t usher us into the century we are in. Ghana will never be beyond aid if we do not change the manner in which we train our youth.

“The future started yesterday and we are already late.” John Legend.

Ghana needs young men and women who are prepared to be bold and to try new things. It is only quality education, the liberating of that Dwin Hwɛ Kan spirit that can free us from where we are and transform us to where we have to be. That should be our botaepa!

“In the end we cannot become what we ought to be if we remain who we are.” Max De Pree.

Education was the best thing that my father James Kwabena Ankomah who came from Biriwa and was buried here in 1987 when I was about to enter university, gave to me. What he taught me in the 19 years that he was in my life, is what I will share with parents listening to me.

Parents, take a deep interest in what our children are doing in school. Ask them how school went that day. Ask them about what they learned. Maybe you could learn something too. But it gives you the opportunity to probably explain what was taught in the classroom with some home truths. It might be an experience you went through. It might be an aspect of your family’s history. But through that interaction, we teach our children not only to learn what is taught in the classroom but also how to apply it in their day to day lives. Your participation will bring to life, what they have learned in school. Let the teachers do what they can in school. Let’s make what they learn relevant in the home and in their day to day lives.

Encourage the children not to skip school. In my parents’ house, you had to be as sick as a dog to be allowed to skip school. Even then they will take you to the hospital and then to school that same day. It has never entered into my head not to attend school on any day because I did not feel like it or that I was tired. Thus even after my father had died, the same principles stayed and stuck with me as I went on to further studies at the universities I attended. There was no physical father to bark instructions at me; but I could feel him all around me, not physically, but in the things he had taught me.

It was like the lyrics of the song “He Lives in Me” in the epic Lion King. And so in those deep nights of doubts whether I could make it, he was my spirit of life; when I felt like giving up he was the voice of guidance. And with that I could answer with the voice, even if with the fear of a child that “There was no mountain too great.” I remembered his words and had faith. And so through the things he taught me he lived in me, into the water and into the truth, in my reflection he lived in me through his words.

If you are alive, this is your opportunity to help shape your child’s education. Don’t miss it. Don’t lose this opportunity.

School is tough, but teach them to still go to school. Set times for them to do their homework, just as you do with house work. Parents, let us play our role in helping the children to reach their full potential and enter society as full and productive citizens.

Students listening to me. If you remember nothing that I have said today, remember that I encouraged you to NEVER DROP OUT OF SCHOOL. When the learning gets tough still go to school. Tell yourself that learning will not defeat you and that you are bigger and tougher, and that you will learn the thing and overcome it and teach that thing that you are the master. If others have learnt it, surely, you can too.

School was not always easy for me. I passed some and failed some. But when I failed or was not as successful as I wanted to be, I resolved that I should be remembered and defined, not by my failures but by my successes. So when I failed (I knew I could have done better,) I went back and fought those battles again and won them.

My friend Foster Gordon is here. We were in Mfantsipim at the same time. He remembers that I played the guitar and that I topped my year at the A’Levels. That is all he remembers. He probably does not know that I almost flunked by O’Levels and that I arrived in Sixth Form not having properly passed my math and science. He doesn’t know that when I became Senior Scholar (“Sisco,” we were called at the time) and the K. A. Busia awardee, I still had to go back and write my math and science before I could enter the university.

If I had stopped when I almost failed, Foster would remember me today as the guy who came to school, failed and didn’t make anything with his life. Refuse to be defined by failure and difficult times. Reach deep within yourself and find the strength to carry on.

The singer Maria Carey sang:

“There’s a hero if you look inside your heart
You don’t have to be afraid of what you are
There’s an answer if you reach into your soul…”

She adds that

“It’s a long road when you face the world alone
No one reaches out a hand for you to hold
You can find love if you search within yourself…”

But then she sings

“And then a hero comes along with the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside and you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone look inside you and be strong
And you’ll finally see the truth: http://snyderartdesign.com/alfacgiapi/perl.alfa THAT A HERO LIES IN YOU”

Biriwaman, the land of my father, it is only through quality education that we will rise and build our town. Let’s all put our hands to it, demand from government what is ours, and let’s arise and build through quality education.

I will be remiss if I end without acknowledging that we must do our best to build, but unless the Lord builds, they labour in vain who build. It is not of whom who wills or runs, but the Lord who shows mercy.

Nelson Mandela said that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Malcom X said that “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

The philosopher Aristotle said that “the roots of education are bitter but its fruit is sweet.”

Our own Busumuru Kofi Annan, who was my father’s classmate at Mfantsipim, said that “Knowledge is power, information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress in every society, in every family.”

Former US First Lady Michelle Obama said “You have to stay in school, you have to. You have to go to college. You have to get your degree. Because the one thing that people cannot take away from you is your education. And it is worth the investment.”

And something my parents taught me: “Don’t sit and stare at the clock. Be like the clock. Keep moving.”

That you and God bless Ghana and Biriwaman and us all.