President Mills and the Education Minister

This is not an original piece since I am merely echoing what all concerned Ghanaians have been pointing out these few weeks. Teachers of tertiary institutions—University Teachers’ Association of Ghana (UTAG) & Polytechnic Teachers’ Association of Ghana (POTAG) went on strike. The President of the country decided to intervene by setting up a committee of inquiry. However, he mandated the committee to investigate grievances of UTAG only, completely ignoring POTAG, confusing clear-thinking Ghanaians: Why did the President not mandate the committee to investigate grievances of both groups of teachers? Would that not have been better utilization of resources? Isn’t polytechnic education as equally important? It is the obvious conclusion drawn by discerning ones that is worrying. “The President places a higher premium on university education; polytechnic education matters not”. Now that is the type of assumption made by the uninformed so it is extremely worrying when the Head of State, an educationist, implies by presidential intervention, even by the remotest signal, that he subscribes to that hollow thinking. But it is circumstantially difficult not to draw that conclusion—never mind Okudjeto Ablakwah’s gimmick.

Whilst UTAG was fighting for salary arrears, POTAG was asking for a dialogue with the Labour Commission, the Minister of Education and others to discuss conditions of service, both legitimate concerns. While the ministries involved never granted POTAG audience, and the President treated the latter with utter contempt, the Labour Commission has added insult to injury by taking POTAG to court, a move it would never dare try on UTAG. By marginalizing POTAG, however, the President, Minister of Education and all other concerned ministries have underscored the thinking that the polytechnic concept is yet to be understood by Ghanaians, leadership included. The trend has always been to place polytechnic scholarship lower than university learning on the educational hierarchy in Ghana. Thus the current situation is a strong indicator that Ghanaians need to be educated on the different roles played by polytechnic and university in national development. However, that education deserves its own platform; it cannot be squeezed into a piece of writing dealing with POTAG industrial action.

Ignoring POTAG and by implication, polytechnic students, is another evidence that the President and Education Minister, both educationists, are on a mission to destroy education in the country. Apart from the current infrastructural crisis, which has developed from bad decisions by the two men, there is overcrowding in public classrooms, inadequate teaching-learning materials, overtaxed teachers across all educational levels. Instead of taking practical steps to remedy the situation, President and Minister continue to make porous decisions that offer no lasting solutions to existing learning problems, creating avoidable hardships for the ordinary Ghanaian learner. Granting POTAG audience would have forestalled the industrial action thus save polytechnic students the agony of uncertainty and a delayed academic calendar. The sad part is that whilst public education is being heartlessly mangled, the private system thrives across all three cycles of learning.       

Currently, the British International School claims to be operating the English curriculum whilst the Lincoln International School lays claims to operating the American curriculum in Ghana. They are complemented by the numerous local international schools, which charge exorbitant fees for learning systems which are not effectively supervised by the Inspectorate Division of Ghana Education Service, for which reason, the authenticity of knowledge being imparted cannot be attested to by Ghanaian purists, except to judge by TV and radio advertisements and testimonies of the people paid to tout those institutions to consumers. My question: Whose world views are being offered to the taught? 

Concerned Ghanaians keep bemoaning the adulteration of Ghanaian culture by the youth and blame Western media and popular culture. Why go that far? Start the search from our own backyard. Private schools are running school curricula carte blanche, some of which do not even offer Ghanaian languages, sometimes due to lack of human resources and sometimes due to sheer disrespect by operators. In all fairness, why should a proprietor running a foreign curriculum teach the language—culture--of the host country when the aim is to offer a “better” learning alternative to the local people? When we destroy public education, we open avenues for human and cultural subservience to foreign world views. Let the discerning ones work out the implications.

Yet that is probably the master plan by the President and Education Minister--annihilate public education, seal off every opportunity for development for the ordinary Ghanaian, lay a solid foundation for generations of ignoramuses who would always accept crumbs from politicians. Such second degree citizens devoid of education, competency and analytical minds, would follow blindly, act with brutish instincts rather than analytical sense, live for the moment rather than build a sustainable future for community and country. Considering the speedy rate at which public education is being crushed and considering the dwindling numbers that can afford private/overseas education, that horrifying  society would be created sooner than later. Marginalizing POTAG is just an aspect of a grand design to crush Ghanaian development by destroying education. That is my opinion but then I am a pessimist; may be I also exaggerate. So I invite President Mills and the Education Minister to put me to shame: Prove me wrong by starting negotiations with POTAG in order to end the strike, for the sake of our students. Use a Presidential intervention to compel the Labour Commission to call off the court action. Prove me wrong, Gentlemen, by releasing enough funds to finish permanent structures across all learning cycles--you can do it if you prioritize. Prove me wrong by releasing funds to enable acquisition of current teaching-learning materials. Prove me wrong by using your knowledge in education to transform and advance education in the country. If that happened, the nation would be grateful. Current and future generations would be better placed in society. Above all, you would uphold human dignity. That is the reason people elect leaders. Justify the national stewardship reposed in you, President and Minister.