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The Ghana Education Service And Culture Education Delivery At The Pre-University Level: A Critical Appraisal By Michael Akenoo Theatre Critic.
Culture education at the pre-university level in Ghana is the sole responsibility of the Ghana Education Service.
This arduous and challenging responsibility has posed some difficulties to the Ghana Education Service in the context of funding, logistics, efficiency; and the achievement of the set down objectives as far as the Ghanaian culture education delivery is concerned at the pre-university level of the education ladder.
It is quite evident that there is much to be expected from the Ghana Education Service since it set up the culture unit besides its other divisions such as finance and administration, Inspectorate special education etc. This state of affairs is much worrying and needs to be addressed urgently.
It is clear that since the culture unit was set up, it has been continually discriminated against,and given very little attention as compared to the other divisions of the Ghana Education Service up to date.
As a result, the culture unit has continually and consistently been performing poorly and below standard up to date.
In fact, the culture unit has suffered much neglect to the detriment of the realization of the noble objectives for which it was up to achieve. Consequently, it has lost its direction as expected to benefit Ghana as far as the inculcation of the Ghanaian culture among the youth is concerned.
This state of affairs is deplorable and something drastic must be done by the Ghana Education Service now in order to reverse this unpleasant situation; and make culture education delivery at the pre-university level more realistic, meaningful and rewarding to benefit the country.
It is a fact that subsequent directors of the culture unit of the Ghana EducationService had been finding it extremely difficult if not impossible, to efficientlyadminister and run the unit as a result of the perennial problems facing the unit.Infrastructure and logistics are virtually non-existent, let alone the availability of adequate funds to make things move smoothly and easily to achieve ends of various cultural programmes that the unit can initiate and implementto promote and develop the Ghanaian culture.
Based on my critical observation as one who had had the experience of working in the culture unit of the Ghana Education Service as an assistant director and co-ordinator of drama education in the country, this unit needs drastic transformation to put it in the right track for quality and efficient delivery to meet its mandated objectives. The continued existence of thisall importance unit of the Ghana Education Service must be critically reappraised now; and given proper attention that it deserves asfar as the promotion and development of the Ghanaian culture are concerned; or else it ceases to exist to save the tax payers’ money, which can be used in other areas of socio-economic endeavours in the development agenda of the country.
In my opinion, the meagre funding that the unit had hitherto been receiving from the Ghana Education Service’s annual budget is a waste since it practically contributes nothing to promote and develop the Ghanaian culture effectively at the pre-university level of education in the country.
I have taken this critical stand due to my unpleasant experience in working in this unit, which led to my sudden resignation from the Ghana Education Service to undertake lecturing at the University of Education, Winneba, and other tertiary institutions in the country.
However, as a concerned citizen, who has the interest of the country at heart as far as the education of the Ghanaian culture is concerned for a realistic and meaningful progress and development of the country, I will like to make the following suggestions for the transformation of the culture unit of the Ghana Education Service for a better performance and positive results achievement to benefit the country in her development agenda.
In the context of the transformation of the culture unit, the first step to be taken urgently now is to upgrade the culture unit to a division status; and give it priority attention as the other divisions of the Service and furthermore, give it a face-lifting environment in terms of office equipment and facilities as pertains in the other divisions of the Service.
The next step to take is to appoint a highly competent director the person who will be appointed to head the culture unit must have deep interest in culture and also have the zeal and capacity to promote and develop the Ghanaian culture pragmatically and effectively to meet the needs of the Ghanaian youth at the pre-university level of education.
The next step to follow is to appoint subordinate staff who are all well qualified in the area of culture and have the interest , zeal and the capacity to promote and develop the Ghanaian culture among the youth at the pre-university level.
Furthermore, the Ghana Education Service must make available special incentives and motivation packages to the rank and file of the culture division in order to motivate and boost their morale to work very hard to achieve positive results.
The last step to take but not the least in the transformation exercise, is to ensure that adequate funds are always available to support various viable programmes of culture that will be initiated and undertaken by the culture division. This will surely guarantee hard work, commitment and sacrifice from the director and his staff. And this situation will greatly fuel and ginger them to work very hard to meet expectation and the set down objectives of the division.
It must be well noted that the culture of a nation is the bedrock and panacea for her economic growth, development and prosperity since time immemorial as far back as the classical era of ancient Greece up to the present era of the modern world. For instance, the U.S and China today are great powers in terms of wealth, development and prosperity as aresult of their highly developed cultures. The same reason can also be attributed to the other great and prosperous nations in our modern world today.
In concise terms, culture can be defined as the typical character, life style and behavior of a group of people in a particular geographical area on earth. In fact, everything that a group of people do for their survival and livelihood becomes their culture. Thus, for a group of people to progress and advance in knowledge, enlightment and achieve economic growth, development and prosperity, invariably depends on their culture that they have envolved and developed for themselves.
Ghana must become more serious and pay special attention to the promotion and development of her culture, so that she can experience optimum eonomic growth, development and prosperity in the shortest possible of time from now in the present 21st century.
The Ghana Education Service has been mandated to promote and develop the Ghanaian culture at the pre-university level; and this is why as an important government organization, it must be up and doing to contribute realistically and meaningfully to the development agenda of the country.
The Ghana Education Service has not been found wanting in the other areas of education delivery in the country; so it must wake up now in the area of culture education because as pointed out in the foregoing, culture is the pivot and the sine quanon for the development of countries in the past, present and in the future, for that matter.
In the implementation of the various programmes that the culture division will develop, it must ensure that it follows them up with comprehensive report in the form of analysis, evaluation and recommendations for the way forward in the future. These reports must be submitted annually to the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service for scrutiny, study and action by way of implementation.
The era in which different programmes and activities of culture such as the annual culture festivals in the various regions of Ghana were undertaken by the culture unit without supporting them with any comprehensive post mortem reports and recommendations for implementation must come to a halt immediately, so that the culture division will become more dynamic, resourceful and effective to enable it to achieve its noble mandated objective to benefit the country.
Every culture is dynamic but not stagnant; and that is why the culture division must be seen to be working very hard to the letter in order to fulfill its mandated objectives.
Again, based on my experience at the culture unit of the Ghana Education Service, I assert categorically that if the Ghana Education Service is really serious and concerned with a realistic and meaningful development of the Ghanaian culture, it must immediately turn the present unit of culture into a division status; and follow this up with the other suggestions that I have made in this article.
The Ghanaian culture is highly crucial in the developmental agenda of the country at the moment; and the Ghana Education Service must realize this stark truth, and act accordingly in the interest of Ghana. The Ghanaian culture can no longer be thrown to the dogs to jeopardise the development of the country/
In conclusion, I am optimistic; and hence forth; wish the Ghana Education Service well in its handling of the priceless and invaluable Ghanaian culture to benefit Ghana realistically and meaningful; for culture, is the sine qua non for any realistic and meaningful development anywhere in the modern world today.
When the floodwaters swept through parts of Ghana on Monday, June 29, they carried away more than furniture and household belongings. They washed away years of hard work, children’s school books, market goods, and family savings and, tragically, claimed lives.
For the families that lost loved ones, no amount of assistance can replace the pain of the silence left behind by someone who got lost during the torrential rains.
For many other survivors, the ordeal did not end when the rains stopped, but rather will have the Herculean task of rebuilding their lives from almost nothing.
Mothers searched through debris for anything they could salvage. Children stood quietly beside damaged homes, unsure of when life would return to normal. Traders who lost their wares stared helplessly at soaked goods that represented their only source of income.
This is the situation whenever it rains continuously for hours, yet, once the waters recede, many of the behaviours that contribute to these disasters return.
Drains once cleared become clogged with plastic waste. Waterways are treated as dumping sites, while buildings continue to spring up on wetlands and natural drainage channels.
Effects on women, children
For many women, particularly market traders, farmers and owners of small businesses, the floods had erased years of hard work in a matter of hours.
Merchandise have been destroyed, equipment damaged, and incomes disappear overnight.
With many women working in the informal sector and having limited financial protection, recovery is often slow and difficult.
Beyond the economic losses, women frequently carry the added burden of caring for their families during and after disasters. They clean flood-damaged homes, care for children, older relatives and the sick, secure food and water under difficult circumstances, and help restore a sense of normalcy while coping with their own trauma.
Children are equally vulnerable. Floods disrupt their education by damaging schools and making roads impassable. Many children are displaced from their homes, exposing them to health risks, emotional distress and unsafe living conditions.
For children from already vulnerable households, a flood has deepened poverty and interrupted their development in ways that last long after the waters have receded.
Human activities
The scale of destruction witnessed during floods is often magnified by human behaviour.
Drains designed to carry storm water are clogged with plastic waste, discarded household items and other refuse.
Wetlands and natural waterways are encroached upon through unplanned development, leaving floodwaters with nowhere to go.
Although floods affect everyone in their path, women and children often suffer the greatest consequences.
Climate Change
Climate change has made rainfall more intense and unpredictable, but it is the actions of humans that often turn heavy rains into humanitarian disasters.
As the nation reflects on the devastation caused by the recent floods, one question demands urgent attention: How much of this destruction could have been prevented?
Climate change and increasingly intense rainfall are undeniable factors, the uncomfortable truth is that many of these disasters are worsened by human actions.
Choked drains, indiscriminate waste disposal and the encroachment on waterways continue to turn heavy rains into avoidable tragedies.
Climate change has undoubtedly increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, but it is only one part of the story.
UNICEF report
These concerns are reflected in UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026, which warns that hundreds of millions of children worldwide face multiple climate hazards, including flooding.
According to the report, climate-related disasters threaten children’s health, education, nutrition and protection, with children in vulnerable communities facing the greatest risks.
The report also highlights how existing inequalities often compound the impact of climate emergencies on women and children.
Floodwaters contaminated by waste also increase the risk of outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea and malaria. Pregnant women, nursing mothers, young children, older persons and people living with disabilities are particularly susceptible to these health threats.
United Nations (UN) Women notes that women and children are often disproportionately affected by climate-related disasters because they are more likely to experience poverty, carry greater caregiving responsibilities and have fewer resources to recover from disasters.
When floods destroy livelihoods, existing inequalities become even more pronounced. The painful truth is that many of these losses are avoidable.
Way forward
No drainage system, regardless of how well designed, can function effectively if it is filled with refuse. No flood prevention programme can succeed if wetlands continue to be reclaimed for construction or if sanitation regulations are ignored.
Preventing floods is therefore not the responsibility of government alone. It requires a collective commitment from every citizen.
Proper waste disposal, regular community clean-up exercises, respect for planning regulations and the protection of waterways are simple but powerful actions that can save lives.
Government must equally strengthen waste management systems, enforce environmental and building regulations without compromise, invest in climate-resilient infrastructure and ensure that disaster preparedness and response strategies address the specific needs of women, children and other vulnerable groups.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has repeatedly emphasised that reducing disaster risk is far less costly than responding to disasters after they occur.
Investing in prevention, strengthening institutions and promoting responsible environmental practices remain among the most effective ways of protecting lives and livelihoods.
The recent floods should serve as more than another headline. They should be a national wake-up call.
Climate change may be beyond the control of any one individual, but how we treat our environment is not. Every plastic bottle thrown into a drain, every illegal structure erected on a waterway and every act of indiscriminate dumping contributes to a cycle of destruction that claims lives and undermines national development.
If Ghana is to break that cycle, environmental responsibility must become a shared national value.
By Esinam Jemima Kuatsinu
One more wedding. That’s what she’d told herself. Her portrait studio was already up and running, and she was done with the traveling and the fourteen-hour days and the family drama. Just one last wedding.
Jacqui checked the time on her phone for the umpteenth time and inhaled deeply. Screw it, the mindful breathing wasn’t cutting it. She caught the bartender’s eye. “Whiskey, please. Neat.”
She normally never drank at weddings–at least not until she clocked off. But this uncertainty was doing her head in.
She shouldn’t have agreed to the job, but it was Celia. Plus the new studio lights were expensive, and the groom was minted. Like, banking-money minted. This wedding was leaking money, from the exclusive manor-hotel venue with its manicured lawns, uniformed staff, open bar, to Celia’s dress, which Jacqui knew had been a gift from the groom’s corporate lawyer father. Celia had whispered that it cost “two months’s rent.” Who knew how much that might mean.
Plus, she’d known Celia since grammar school in Cork. It would be like turning down family; she’d never have heard the end of it.
But then Celia had moved the wedding back two hours, and now Jacqui was screwed. She let the whiskey slide down her throat and its warmth seep up her spine.
How the hell to explain to a bride that you couldn’t take pictures during golden hour because of magic.
She should have cancelled.
The last time Jacqui had shot a wedding at golden hour, the bride’s politician brother had appeared in every picture with a blurred mouth. He was arrested a week later on corruption charges, and every paper in the country had run headlines using the word ‘liar.’ Before that, it had been her own cousin’s university graduation, where he’d appeared transparent around the edges in every photo. A year later he’d abandoned medical school and cut ties with the family. Was now living in New Zealand, a diving instructor.
Jacqui never knew what truth might be revealed, or how cryptic or obvious it would be. She only knew she didn’t want the knowledge.
Curse the golden hour. And curse whichever social media wedding influencer Celia was following who had no doubt insisted the perfect wedding had to have flawless photos taken in the purest light, so her skin would look magazine-cover exquisite.
Oh, this was nuts. Why wasn’t she at home on her couch with Andy and Luna, drinking pinot and watching something benign on telly? Maybe Ted Lasso or even Breaking Bad. Something old. Something with an ending she already knew.
The wedding planner was even now corralling the families towards the manor’s water feature. It would be fine if there was a chance in hell it would take less than twenty minutes to herd them all to one place, but wedding party guests were basically cats when it came to organisation. Even now they were milling around, new ones wandering off as lost ones returned.
Celia appeared on the grass, framed by the pristine white french doors of the bar area, which led onto the lawn. Gorgeous. And sweet. Did not deserve what was coming.
What might be coming? Jacqui liked the revised verb. Surely there had to be a chance that it wouldn’t happen again. Surely. Oh, quit kidding yourself. This had happened too many times to pretend and in too many different contexts. The magic worked on any camera, fancy or plain, expensive or crap.
Out there on the green, Celia was clearly at her wits’ end, searching for wayward relatives. It would be the twenty-somethings. Since they weren’t here at the bar, they were either at the hotel lounge, or in some corner having a sneaky spliff.
The bride looked to her right, just at that moment, still framed beautifully, the golden hour just about to make its glorious appearance and transform the light into magic, figuratively. And literally.
Jacqui raised her water glass and Celia returned an exasperated smile just as Gavin joined her. As the couple spoke, heads bent towards each other, love clear on both faces, Jacqui raised her phone and snapped a shot. Heart pounding, she checked the image.
On the screen, Celia was kissing air. The groom had vanished.
There on the grass, solid and substantial; in the photo, absent.
In the years since this golden hour trouble had started, she’d seen lies, grief, ghosts and once a man whose shadow walked three feet ahead of him. She’d never seen a bride or groom simply disappear.
“Bollocks.”
The bartender raised her eyebrows and tilted her head towards the whiskey, suggesting another drink.
“I wish. But no, thanks.”
Maybe she could fake a robbery of all her cameras. At least for an hour. She played the scenario out in her head: she’d exit the main bar carrying all her gear, and then come back moments later claiming a theft? Right.
She could feign illness. Some kind of sickness so debilitating that she couldn’t hold out for one hour…like a heart attack? Cue: a lifetime of guilt. Celia’s father had died of a heart attack. No, Jacqui couldn’t take the entire wedding down like that.
There was always the truth. After all, Celia’d grown up in Cork, where every family possessed at least one story nobody could quite explain. But no. This was her husband, and her wedding day.
Perhaps she should check again. Jacqui slid off her barstool and approached the french doors. From the threshold, she snapped a few more of the crowd. Several of Gavin, specifically, who looked perfect in this flood of golden light.
She swiped through. There he was in the ceremony, saying his vows, holding the ring, kissing the bride, and walking up the aisle afterwards. All present and correct. But another swipe and there they all were, the whole wedding party, outside–all but Gavin. The groom was missing. Double bollocks.
Scanning the shots, in case some additional disaster had yet to reveal itself to her, it didn’t appear that any other guests were affected. Thank Hecate for that.
“I know it’s getting late. We’re almost ready, I swear.”
Jacqui jolted. It was Celia, who’d approached on stealthy-bride Manolos.
“Oh–Hey. It’s fine. It’s nothing. Take your time.”
“Is everything alright? Your expression…are the photos okay?”
The eagerness in her bright blue eyes belied the question. Celia didn’t actually believe anything would be wrong with the pictures. This wasn’t even the right camera, just a phone. All the good, important shots would be on the expensive gear. “Totally fine! I was just checking–reading a text. All good.”
Celia nodded. “Honestly, I’m losing my patience. I’m giving them five more minutes and then they just won’t be in the family photos. You know?”
Jacqui stretched her lips into a smile she didn’t feel. Wished for another whiskey to appear in her hand. Why didn’t the magic happen like that? Why with the damn photos?
“Jacqui, you look just like you did on the day Sean Ryan asked you to the Winter Dance. What aren’t you telling me?” Celia stepped closer, with laser focus on Jacqui’s screen. “Those are photos of today. Show me.”
She took the phone and peered at it. Frowned. Swiped. Swiped again, and again. Her frown deepened.
Jacqui winced. “I–”
“Odd.” She swiped further back and paused. “He’s here.”
“Yeah.” “But not here.”
Jacqui shook her head.
“It’s funny…” But Celia didn’t finish the thought. She handed Jacqui the phone and waved at the bartender. “Two whiskeys, please.”
“Bless you.”
“This is–” Celia bit her lip. “Come on.”
She marched to the bar, and Jacqui had no choice but to follow, grasping for something– anything–to say to explain the void.
“Do you know what it means?” Celia handed Jacqui a lowball tumbler.
“No.” She shook her head with more certainty than she felt. “It’s the time of day. Something about this light reveals…something. I can’t even say ‘truth.’ Because I just don’t know.”
Celia sipped her drink, thoughtful, eyes on the lawn on the other side of the french doors, where the wedding planner was gesturing like a demented traffic warden. “They’ll be waiting. I have to go back out there.” She remained seated.
Jacqui tossed back her drink in one gulp. “We have to.” She savored the whiskey’s burn. This wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. Celia was still staring at the scene on the lawn, at Gavin. Maybe he wasn’t the doting fiance Jacqui assumed. Maybe Celia had already suspected that something wasn’t as it should be. An illness. Or an affair. Maybe she’d already spent months imagining a future without him.
“You should go. I’ll grab my gear.”
Celia glided across the room in that Tuula Tatsuki sheath and those Manolo Blahnik stilettos, framed in gold by the light, which was even now changing. Darkening.
Perhaps the Golden Hour had passed. Maybe the danger was over.
Jacqui slipped her phone in her pocket and slung her bag over her shoulder. As she walked towards the lawn, she saw Celia take her place next to her husband, and Gavin look down at her with love. Celia didn’t look back. The light changed to blue.
The warmth of the whiskey evaporated as a chill ran straight up her spine. – Source:reedsy.com
