05/08/2018
My thoughts about Ghana: Priorities for accelerated development by Michael Apemah, CSCP, USA.
In my humble opinion, a compelling winning strategy for accelerated development of Ghana is to educate every Ghanaian, using English as the language of instruction, to at least the secondary level, in a regulated environment of rule of law, while keeping him alife by giving him access to good medical facilities. Thus the ministies that should be given the most priority is health, education, interior(or simply police and justice) and agriculture.It should go without saying that the Ghanaian should know that food is necessary to live and even without education, he should be able to grow things in the ground to get food. So why do even go hungry in a climate that supports agriculture? but I digress. English is necessary because the world runs on it. The big nations speak it and have created almost all the content that we need to develop in English. If you doubt me just try googling something.
Ideally the minimum free education should be to the University level but that is not immediately practical so we can compensate with an innovative SHS. Consequently, It is imperative that the secondary education has one new course, which we can call Integrated Thinking and Life Skills, which should be taught every term and has simplified practical content such as: what is government and why do we need them? What are the names of some of the important people in government and why were they chosen. What is a national ID card and why do we need it. Why is it important to have supportng documents when applying for various types of national cards/certificates ie passport, birth certificate, drivers license, voters ID etc.What is a business organization and what do you need to register one. Why is for instance Zoomlion still in business? Is it due to superior management skills, boldness, integrity? What is insurance and how does it work? Why do we need insurance? What is a first world country, what are its attributes? What is a sh****le country? What makes one call a country sh****le? Is it the same as a thirld world? What are some of the action plans to accelerate from a sh****le to a first world country?
In the last term of the secondary school year, the course should finish with a project work on how to change or improve an identified problem in the community, similar to the project work executed in the final year at the university, but in a simplified watered down version.
How did I come by these thoughts?
I observed that like in most parts of the world, it is the educated that run the country, from government to business. If the current educated folks who rule Ghana had a lot of integrity, some simple problems that exist today will be erased. But integrity is lacking and can't be built overnight, so while we work to address it, we need other strategies.
So it is turning out that greed is thwarting our progress and some people are enjoying more than the others. In the absence of an equitable Ghana, it is a little comforting that at least not just one party enjoys the greed. In that light, it is a good thing that power had rotated between NDC and NPP, to at least spread the spoils of the greed across the political divide. It would have been a recipe for chaos if just one party was enjoying all the spoils of greed. It is also a clear fact that to even get the opportunity to benefit from the greed, one has to be educated in Ghana. What I mean is take look at the politicians and big business men in Ghana. They are lawyers, doctor's,engineers, accountants etc. So as an ordinary foot soldier Ghanaian, you will continue to wallow in low life if you don't get educated, because you may never have the opportunity to benefit big time even if you are skilled in corruption. You still need to rely on the edcated greedy politician to get by. So the solution? Being an educated greedy person is better than being an uneducated greedy person. Thankfully free SHS, if it won't do anything at all can elevate some uneducated footsodiers children, whether greedy or not to compete with those shady educated politicians. At least they get a chance.
That was worse case scenario. It was a little depressing thinking other greedy person should become educated to get a chance. Hopefully educating the masses will open up their thinking faculties and get them to innovate. Instead of being greedy, they will stand for justice. They will see through the schemes of politicians. They will realize that greed only helps a few and chart a new course.
I think the current president understands this, that is why he was in a hurry to educate the people and feed them thus the free SHS.After a lot of thinking, to my disappointment I can see why he is not hard on Zoomlion.What he hasn't done so well yet is to keep Ghanaians alive by creating access to good medical care and improving the police. I enjoin him to turn his focus in these key areas: the police, justice and health, while continuing to sustain all the other functions that make up government.
