Features
School fees chop chop
As a little kid in secondary school, Kwame Alomele can recall that indiscipline was all about bullying, going to town without exeat, and childish pranks that caused anxiety among school authorities.
Sometimes the headmaster developed hypertension and hernia, because he was scared stiff. But the worst students did was to riot to protest against the domestic bursar’s defective knowledge in nutritional needs. In simple language, students did not want kenkey and gas oil stew.
They wanted rice and curry chicken stew against pineapple dessert and not kenkey served alongside a sub-diesel sauce that students found revolting.
So they would riot, break into the school store, and steal tins of milk, tinapa, milo, and whatever could be stolen and eaten quietly without any risk of being found out.
It was interesting because all those who thought they would not be identified were shocked to realise that their names were on the headmaster’s list the following day. The headmaster had spies who took part in the riot and later presented an accurate report of who did what and who didn’t steal milo.
The ringleaders were promptly dismissed and the rest were suspended. In their next bills, they were asked to pay for the destruction of school property and then asked to sign bonds to be of good behaviour.
Sometimes the riot got so bad that policemen were called in to quell it, especially during the night. It degenerated into running battles with the police and an opportunity for students to test their knowledge in physics.
Electric jolt
They electrified door-handles and earthed them in such a way that a policeman who held any handle was given an electric jolt, powerful enough to make him somersault. It was enough to put the fear of the devil in truncheon-wielding cops. Some cops returned to base with one eye closed, a cracked head, or a missing ear.
The school is normally closed down for GES to deliberate and investigate the cause of the riot and remedial measures. These riots rarely occurred, and when they did, it meant the students had real cause to go haywire.
It was found that the headmaster collaborated with the bursar to embezzle funds which affected student feeding. The situation normally became hopeless and students had to explode.
Normally, the riot was also seen to be the cumulative effect of administrative thievery, ineptitude, and proven immorality. The headmaster was often accused of being too friendly with some female students—too friendly for comfort!
Such indiscipline student behaviour, however, were isolated cases that reared once in a long while. It was not a phenomenon.
There was also nothing like students being so bad as to spend their own monies meant for settling school fees. You wouldn’t even dream of it.
Who born dog by mistake?
Some parents had to struggle to settle school fees. So when they gave you the money and you misapplied it, that was your end. You better get prepared to become an apprentice mason, because no one was going to give you another chance.
Student girls were also unruly in some ways, but not to the extent of scaling out on Valentine’s Day to have sex orgies in hotels. At least, the girls knew the limit to every misconduct.
Sports was very much encouraged and schools made names out of excellence in various sporting disciplines. During competitions, there were often scuffles among rival schools and students sustained minor injuries. These days, schoolboys organise gang-rapes during sporting events. Check out the recent Dormaa Ahenkro case. What really is happening to the young ones? Are they possessed of the devil?
We are told that the Scripture Union (SU) is having more influence on students in schools. However, this is not reflecting in student behaviour. Could it also be the result of lack of supervision?
What I hear is that the only allowance a housemaster or housemistress gets is ¢10,000 a month. Senior housemasters get ¢20,000 a month, and the health or medicare allowance for teachers is ¢25,000 (is it a year?). How can a housemistress take ¢10,000 a month and be motivated to do a good job? Naturally, she wouldn’t keep a keen eye on the girls.
GES should review all these allowances and make them motivational enough for teachers to do a good job. This is very important.
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
This week I have a very strong desire to put on my Apostolic Cap and talk about the power available to children of God which we can utilise to generate positive outcomes, in our lives.
There is a phrase in the Bible that if Christians meditate on, can immensely transform their lives. In Matthew 28:6 there is a phrase “… as he said…” according to the King James Version.
Thus phrase forms part of a statement declared by an angel of God to two women who were disciples of Jesus who had gone to his tomb early in the morning on the third day after his death.
According to the Biblical account, the stone covering the entrance of the tomb had been rolled away and an Angel was sitting on it and he made the statement to the effect that the Jesus they are seeking is not there and that he had risen, as he said before his death.
His resurrection affirmed the authenticity and dependability of the word of Jesus and therefore the word of God.
Christianity has to do with faith in the word of God. Pastor Mensa Otabil said if we view Christianity as an inside out view, you would go inside to operate the power that is in you.
As a Christian, the spirit of God and therefore the power of God, dwells in you. Anyone who is aware of this truth, does not go around seeking to have a so called powerful person resolve his or her spiritual issues.
Most Christians who move from prophet to prophet, do not believe that the spirit of God which operates in a Pastor or Prophet, is the same spirit that dwells in him or her.
In fact , that Christian may be more ‘powerful’ than the Prophet or Pastor he is going to for prayers because he is living a holy life, which is pleasing to God, for God is no respecter of persons according to Acts 10:34-35.
God does not give out his spirit in different measures to indwell believers. The spirit of God that dwells in a new convert, is the same spirit that dwells in a Bishop or a Prophet or an Evangelist or an Elder or a Deacon.
All you need to do as a child of God is to believe in the word of God and know that it works and that according to 1 John 4:4 we, Christians, that the Spirit of God dwells in us have overcome the world and Jesus in us, is greater than the Devil who is out in the world, wrecking havoc all around.
If we realise that we have overcome the Devil and everything he controls, then we can believe and act in faith and make declarations and just as Christ declared that he will die and on the third day, he will rise from the dead and it manifested as he said, there shall be a manifestation of our declarations also.
The problem of modern day Christians is that, a lot of them, do not study and meditate on the word of God, so they do not witness the manifestation of the power of God, in their lives.
Such an experience over time, give them the impression that the spirit of God dwells in different dimensions in believers. This then leads them to seek solutions to their challenges from so called powerful men of God.
Some Pastors also fall into this misconception of the measure of the spirit of God in believers. When the size of a Pastor’s church for instance, is not increasing the way he had been praying for self-doubt sometimes begin to set in.
Especially, if he begins to compare his church with that of say a colleague from the same Bible School, then he begins to wonder if there is not a spiritual secret he is not aware of.
This is when, if care is not taken, fellow Pastors who appears to be very successful in the ministry but are using occultic powers, could sway them from the narrow path and get them trapped in the Devil’s clutches and eventually and inevitably, destroy their lives. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
Introduction
You have been there. Twenty tabs open comparing laptops. A blank page for an email you’ve been “thinking about” for three days. A menu with 30 options and you leave hungry.
This is decision paralysis: the state where the volume of information, options, or perceived stakes prevents you from making a decision at all. It’s not laziness. It’s a cognitive overload response.
In a data-rich environment, it’s becoming the default mode for both individuals and organisations.
This article breaks down why it happens, how it shows up, what it costs, and how to break it.
1. What decision paralysis actually is?
Decision paralysis is a failure of the decision-making system to convert information into action. Psychologists call it ‘analysis paralysis’ or ‘choice overload.’
It has three components:
1. Cognitive overload: Working memory can hold between four to seven chunks of information at once. When you try to track 20 variables, the system freezes.
2. Anticipatory regret: You overestimate the pain of making the wrong choice. The brain avoids the emotional cost by avoiding the choice.
3. Ambiguity aversion: Humans prefer known risks over unknown ones. When outcomes are uncertain, we stall.
The result is not neutral. Not deciding is a decision. It costs time, momentum, and opportunity
2. Why it’s getting worse now
2.1 Infinite options
Amazon has 350 million products. Netflix has 6000+ titles. Dating apps have unlimited profiles. The paradox of choice: more options increase initial satisfaction but decrease final satisfaction and increase regret.
2.2 Information abundance without synthesis
You can find 50 studies on sleep. Each one has caveats, conflicting results, and different methodologies. Without a framework to integrate them, more data creates more confusion, not clarity. This connects directly to the “data-rich, wisdom-poor” problem.
2.3 Reversibility anxiety
In the digital age, most decisions feel permanent. A bad post goes viral. A bad hire is public on LinkedIn. A bad career move is visible. The fear of irreversible error makes people delay.
2.4 Algorithmic mirroring
Platforms show you what you already engage with. This creates an illusion that there’s one ‘best’ option you are missing. You keep searching, convinced the optimal choice is one more scroll away.
3. How it shows up
Personal Level
Cannot pick a career path after six months of ‘research’
Spend two hours choosing a movie and watch nothing
Delay sending an email because it ‘isn’t perfect’
3.1 Organisational level
Teams spend 80 per cent of time in meetings gathering data, 20 per cent deciding
Product teams delay launch waiting for “one more data point”
KPIs multiply but no strategic choice is made
3.2 Common cognitive tells:
Endless comparison tables
Asking for one more opinion
Reframing the problem instead of solving it
Feeling drained after thinking but not acting
By Robert Ekow Grimmond-Thompson
