Features
The blind leading the Blind?
I believe we all know what the situation will be when a blind leads another blind. This is what the likely scenario will be in a few years in our education sector if care is not taken by those in charge of providing quality education to the coming generations.
Only recently, some textbooks have found themselves in basic schools that have raised a lot of concerns about their contents, some bordering on what some describe as tribal or ethnic bigotry. What it means is that some ethnic groups (tribes) have been sighted for ridicule and disdain. How an author can put such stuff in writing for young minds to imbibe beats the mind completely unless that author has a personal agenda to poison these young minds.
People are known to malign others in fictional story books, biographies and autobiographies or even in poetry, but textbooks? Anyway, personal agenda or not, the thrust of my write-up today is how the stuff in some of these textbooks is packaged. Because the official language of Ghana is English, the language becomes the tool of any endeavour to educate or inform the student.
That my 13-year-old grandniece puts down a textbook and, with a red pen in hand, sets to correct the grammar of one such published material, is a clear indictment on our education system. She picks up wrong spelling, wrong punctuation and many other proofreading errors in a book that is supposed to be approved for basic education in this country. Meanwhile, the author of the textbook in question definitely is not a basic school student. But my little girl identified 39 errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation in this textbook.
I hear there is a National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) that has the responsibility of vetting all materials meant to serve as textbooks for education purposes. The question I have for NaCCA is: do they just pass everything that a publisher puts forward into the system? Is the Council not clothed to vet grammar, content and factual presentation of content?
Meanwhile, on NaCCA’s website are a lot of rejected publications, yet these offensive textbooks met the criteria for use by schools. How come? Where are the safety nets around the release of materials for schools? Does NaCCA have competent staff to look at or vet all the areas that make a textbook appropriate for education purposes? I am referring to proofreading issues and factual presentation of texts. Or anyone is allowed to conjure their own ‘facts’ from hearsay or their own fertile minds and imagination and publish them for our school children?
We as a nation cannot allow authors of textbooks to behave like illiterate bloggers who write any trash on social media platforms for public consumption. We are discussing the future of our young generation who need guidance and decorous learning in truthfulness and correctness of the medium in which they are expressed. We cannot assume that young minds are discerning enough to determine what is right stuff or trash.
I was caned in Primary Four for daring to tell my class teacher that it was not Tetteh Quarshie who introduced cocoa to Ghana and that before he brought in the Fernando Po variety, there was cocoa in this country. There are records today that show that there was cocoa in our land long before Tetteh Quarshie was even born. Young as I was then, I knew because my late father was a cocoa farmer and knew the difference between the Tetteh Quarshie variety and what was in existence before him.
So, because people are looking to make quick money, they have no time to do proper research into the subject matter they want to produce for education purposes? Definitely, we kill the soul of a nation by this kind of shoddy exercises in the guise of textbooks. In which traditional area in Ghana, for instance, are chiefs elected? We all know that our chieftaincy institution is not clothed in an electoral process.
What is the role of the Ghana Education Service and, by extension, the Ministry of Education in all of this? Do they just flood the classrooms with these materials because NaCCA has found them good for our children? I have heard and watched the Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service vigorously defending one of these offensive materials and I felt sick to my stomach.
Now, to the most intriguing part: is the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) going to examine these basic school children based on the bad grammar, punctuations and spellings? What about the blatant falsehood in the historical narrative of these authors? Can WAEC explain what its role will be in this matter of offensive textbooks serving as reference points for our school children?
It is not only the future of our young generation that is at stake here, but that of the nation as a whole. I see a future where the nation’s foundation is predicated on total falsehood accepted as the truth. If NaCCA, GES and the Ministry of Education are blind, one can foresee the abyss our education is running into.
These institutions of state must bear the vicarious responsibility for the end result that comes out of shoddy and unprofessional educational materials for our school children. They can rescue themselves by ordering a total withdrawal of all these offensive materials from our schools immediately. And the time to act is now, unless they are all blind.
Every child needs protection. They need protection from falsehood; protection from bigots with evil intent. The child needs protection from conniving officialdom today, not tomorrow.
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
Writer’s email address:
akofa45@yahoo.com
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Features
The Cop, press and lost fingers
The job of a policeman, whether he is short or tall, is not a cheap one. He is supposed to keep the peace, protect society and monitor the activities of local magicians and money doublers who are specialists in making civil servants lose their pay within seconds.
By far the most difficult job of the policeman is when he is expected to arrest a murderer who is not only armed but also has a record of appearing and disappearing at will. Even if the tough cop is in the company of other policemen all armed to the teeth, his stomach will turn to water when the criminal suddenly appears.
He is terrified not because the criminal is a better marksman, but because nobody dies twice. The problem also is that a criminal might be prepared to die in a bid to shoot his way to freedom. But is the police-man prepared to risk death in the course of duty when he has a family to rear.
If he had just acquired a new girlfriend with whom he is enjoying life, should he not run away with his tail between his legs and tell his boss that the criminal is uncatchable?
Before some policemen go on patrol duties, they actually pray solemnly. “God send me into the wilderness and bring me back safely with my nose intact because I’m worth more than a common rat. I also do not want to die like a stray dog. If a bullet is targeted at my forehead, Holy Spirit please let it go over the bar, because six children is not a small palaver. If I die, who will look after them? Lord keep me safe day by day. Amen!”
The Sikaman policeman’s job is a risky one because he is not properly equipped with even a trained dog to help track down criminals easily. So he has to use his own nose judiciously in sniffing out suspects while making sure a bullet doesn’t catch him square on the jaw.
My friend Sir Kofi Owuo, a.k.a. Death-By-Poverty was telling me journalists are in an even riskier profession. Apparently, he had been reading about the palaver of journalists in places like Algeria and Columbia. Algeria, even women journalists are not spared assassin’s bullet. You’d see them lying in front of their homes with their heads full of bullet holes.
In Columbia, no journalist is safe. When a journalist is leaving home, he has to tell his wife. “Darling, when I don’t come back by 7 p.m. check the mortuary
The drug trade in Columbia has made journalism a profession not worth practising. If you write on cocaine and the harm it is inflicting on society, you’ll certainly receive a phone call.
“Hello, Mr Journalist, your article yesterday was great. Congratulations! We never knew you were such brilliant writer, championing the cause of society. Again we say congrats! But you know something, by your article, you want to take the bread out of my and that of my family. You don’t want us to beak. We are aggrieved beyond measure”
“Oh, I was just… “You’d try to say something
“You don’t have to explain. The harm has already been done by your award-winning masterpiece. We have an appointment with you. You’ll hear from us.
Rest In Peace!” After such a phone call, you just have to pray to your soul, sing a hymn or two and get prepared fort appointment with death. For, death will surely come
I think pressmen in Sikaman would also have start informing their families appropriately before leaving for work now. “If I don’t come back early, I’m probably at the Ear, Nose and Throat Department of Korle- Bu checking a leakage in my left ear due to a gendarme slap from an AMA official. If you don’t see me there, track me down to the emergency ward. If you see a newly-made cripple, I’m the one”
What about referees? These days they are guarded during football matches so that the risk they bear in terms of lost teeth is minimal. Formerly, it used to be a job full of woes and tribulations.
You were expected to oversee a match in such way that would favour a particular team. If that is not done, you’ll get back home and your wife will not recognise you. She’ll mistake you for Frank Bruno who had just lost a bout. When she finally recognises you, she’ll fix some hot water to massage your poor face.
I hear that these days, apart from the protection referees receive, some are well-armed with Damfo Dzai, a kind of jack-knife that can carve a rowdy supporters face in several designs.
My Press Secretary and part-time bodyguard Devine Ankamah, was telling me if he happens to be a referee, he’d surely carry a Kalashnikov AK 47 rifle with him, complete with loaded magazine, before officiating matches. According to him, that is the only way to do the job without fear or favour. Anyone dares will lose his jaw.
Anyway, risky jobs require good remuneration. As Kwame Korkorti once said, risky jobs require risky salary. A policeman would require a good pay so that when a criminal targets his left ear it would be worth the ‘amputation’. Same for journalists and cameramen.
But go round private workplaces and factories and you’d see really risky occupations where workers are receiving salaries they can’t see with the naked eye.
In fact, in some private workplaces, environmental safety is completely absent. Workers breathe in fumes, poisonous gases and risk lung and respiratory problems. Their employers do nothing about protecting them against these hazards. Check out their payer.
In other places, workers have their fingers chopped off on the job, some losing as many as four fingers in stretch. The compensation they get can best be described as “wicked”. Their employers live big, chop big, ride big but are not willing to pay more than ¢120,000 for lost fingers.
Actually the more fingers you lose, the more money you get. So if you intend losing your fingers on the job, it is advisable to lose as many as possible so that you can get more cash. Those who have lost one finger have not benefited much and are encouraged to lose more next time around.
Sikaman Palava is undertaking to investigate some of these cases of very risky jobs in private setups and companies where workers are being exploited to unnecessarily but not offered protection against health hazards, and not properly compensated when they sustain injuries.
This article was first published on Saturday, September 28, 1996
Features
Position yourself for God’s blessings
Motivated by the impending 40-day fasting and needless to add prayer programme, preceding the Greater Works Conference scheduled for August in Accra, I would like to draw attention to how believers can receive blessings from God.
There is a scripture in Hebrews 11:5 that “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: and before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God”.
This clearly shows that in order to receive blessings from God, you must please God. How can one please God? You can only please God by obeying him and walking in line with God’s word. Just like how children who obey their parents, enjoy special treatment, so does God deal with his children who obey his word.
There are ways by which people receive blessings from God and holiness is an important criteria in the whole equation. Holiness is a process and not a one day event.
It is a mindset borne out of walking in obedience to God’s instructions i.e. his word. In order to have a mindset of living to please God, requires studying God’s word coupled with praying and fasting.
This helps us to develop trust in God by knowing his nature, what he likes and dislikes. This is what will enable us to live to please him and for our faith in him also to increase.
The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6 that “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him”
Fasting is one of the required criteria for blessings to be released and it goes with prayer because fasting without prayer is just a physical exercise. Fasting enables a person’s inner man to be in tune with the spirit of God and also becomes spiritually empowered to hear from God and also obey God.
Fasting enables a person’s spirit to feed on God’s word in a much more focused manner as compared to studying God’s word in normal times. As a result our spirit gains the upper hand to dominate the body and the soul, so that we are more conscious of the presence of God in our lives which causes us willingly the desire to live to obey God.
Holiness which is a prerequisite for pleasing God, can only manifest in our lives if we are able to overcome the desires of the flesh and this only happens when the flesh is subject to the spirit.
Apostle Paul said that “But l keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should not be castaway”, according to 1 Corinthians 9:27.
In order to bring the body or flesh into subjection so that believers will be able to live to please God, we have to study, God’s word in a certain state of mind which fasting and prayer appropriately provides.
Our minds are the battle grounds for decisions that either please God or the Devil. In order to please God so his blessings can be released upon our lives, we must continuously engage our minds with thoughts that is in line with God’s word.
Philippians 4:8 says that “Finally Brethren whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things”. May God help us to live to please him by meditating on things that please the Lord, so we shall be blessed in all aspects of our lives. God bless.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
