Post colonial Ghana hasn't been very different from the Gold Coast in terms of public education. We have our independence but our minds are yet to be freed from foreign indoctrination and tuned back into the local frequency.
Two main institutions that run our public brainwashing systems are the schools and the church/religion.
As an educationist, I would be the last person to condemn formal schooling and education. For all my years I served the Ghana Education Service, never did it leave me that our school system is far from Ghanaian. The mathematical formulas and concepts, scientific methods and chemical equations, the social studies of the government structure and the strict enforcement to speak only in the foreign language culminated in putting the developing mind of the Ghanaian child into serious jeopardy. Little wonder that our minds, after all its schooling seem to be found wanting when it comes to solving our local/national problems. Even after completion, a school product still cannot fathom what our problems are let along devise interventions to rectify them.
For about eight years since the Jacobu Youth Association initiated the Inter-JHS Quiz competition (which is now a district-wide campaign), it is worthy of note that Social Studies ranks the first problematic subject among the four:- English Language, Mathematics, Integrated Science and Social Studies. What our junior minds are yet to know is not really anything big or difficult but our own local district/constituency affairs! For all the ten years since the inception of the Amansie Central District, not one of its daily affairs is ever a topic for study in any of the basic schools. Schoolchildren here are very much able to mention not less than five sector ministers at a go but can spend the whole day naming who the District Finance Officer is. Teachers cannot be blamed for this neither is it wise to accuse our juniors for failing to know the obvious. Interestingly pathetic as it is, the local government concept is largely not understood and practically made less effective. This is because even the local adult population cannot fully grasp the import of the assembly! Hence, we are yet to really know what is currently ongoing at the Assembly - the misappropriation of funds, antagonism, underutilized human resources and all.
Nowhere is it of any concern to either the Local Assembly or the Education Service directorate that such a phenomenon needs to be looked into and proper actions taken to reverse the situation for the better. As it is now, it is not yet considered important to orient our developing minds to the cause of this district/constituency. So I foresee many times ahead when even in the district dispensation, it would have been better to leave the gates open for plunder.
Where the school system failed, the existence of the church succeeded albeit NOT to the interest of the people and definitely not that of the nation at large. I know the premium my folks put on drawing closer to a higher power for spiritual guidance, protection from evil and the ultimate entrance into everlasting life. But the church is more instituted to champion the cause of the Israeli Jews than that of Gyakobuman/Ghana or Afrika. The weekly sermons admonish us to look unto Jerusalem for salvation and final rapture. God the almighty is not from here and so we are told his plans can only benefit us once we make it to heavenly Jerusalem some time soon.
On the grounds, Jakobu alone houses close to thirty chapels/temples of worship on Saturdays and Sundays. The Muslims have succeeded in securing a land for their mosque as well. Weekly revenues that go into those houses surpass any levies the assembly collects in a month! Annual harvests for individual churches can raise close to GH¢ 100,000.00 with a single church garnering more than what the entire community raises for development projects. Yet all the congregations are natives who know this is the land of their birth - their true inheritance - yet have been led to believe that a certain god has prepared a better place for them somewhere beyond the skies flowing with milk and honey and the streets paved with gold.
The comeuppance of such unfortunate miseducation is that, the average believer cares less about the betterment of his/her immediate surrounding, apathetic to our public affairs, and clueless about his/her everlasting inheritance - this land!
If the religious advent had made things better, I'd be its advocate but alas, the home is broken once fathers relinquished their responsibility as heads of the family and invited 'christ' as the rightful head. Christian mothers, instead of bringing their offsprings, spend almost all their married life warding off 'irresponsible girls' from coming near their husbands as the church espouses. Yet it's a daily occurrence to see many of our unmarried women mothering a child a or two from a father whose beliefs prevent him from marrying two. What becomes of such a child? It is left to God who first didn't welcome it in his holy temple. Obviously the African family unit is hijacked yet to be ransomed.
How dare you call yourself native and a kith and kin when you don't even know your 300-year history? What value is your inheritance when you barely know where your land begins or ends? How do we build a community we seldom think about? What is education if it estranges the mind from its habitat? With what do we make decisions for a better future if we cannot appreciate the core challenges of today?
LET US FIRST AND FOREMOST RESCUE THE MINDS - yours and mine!
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