The Ghanaian? It is startling to understand the species of people found located somewhere in the western part of Africa called Ghanaians. What startles me the most is that you would never think in terms of their location and the roles they have played in world history, when you come face to face with them, you would encounter vagueness. Is this the same country that produced Kwegyir Aggrey, Yaa Asantewaa J.B.Danquah, Kwame Nkrumah, Kofi Annan, and many others our rich history and culture pay great homage? Have we stopped thinking and as such have we lost our sense of reality? How on earth can we sacrifice the future well being of our children for the selfish ambition of a former president who performed abysmally in 2016 elections and his NDC?

Free Senior High School education for every Ghanaian child? Do we really know what we are talking about here? That the child of the poorest and the poorest of the poor in our society too would have a child that can attend: Prempeh College,Opoku Ware, TI Ahamadiyah, Pope John,Presec,Adisadel,National,St. Monicas,Aburi Girls,Achimota,Mfanstipim…….and many others? Until 2017, these were the schools only the children of important people like John Dramani Mahama, Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman, Joshua Alabi,Asiedu Nketiah,Sammy Gyamfi,Ofosu Ampofo,Kwakye Ofosu. Ablakwah,Haruna Idrissu and the rest would attend. Should they get their wish, the children of the “MINORITY RICH CLASS” in our society,have the preserved right to rotate their kids to those schools.

Then by the Grace of God, the overwhelming poor in our society cried unto God and he listened to them, there was a change of government and the status quo was reversed. The child of Afia Nyamekye, a lady from Papayeaye village at Sekyedomase too can have her children attend these preserved school free of child. Remember this generation which are so lucky to be at right place at the rich time, owe it to their parents, who rejected the class society and voted massively for a classless society. A society we can say we are equal before the constitution of our country. As we rejoiced because of what the Lord has done for us, “The Class Society” would not give us any rest, they want to REMOVE that God given right once more and take us back to the status quo. Mahama, we say never.

What strategy is the NDC employing? With their monopoly of the media, they are moving all around the country and giving freebies to innocent girls to indulge in acts and antics that discredit the SHS. How do they do it? In some cases they get three to eight girls, ask them to wear their school uniforms, they take them to a classroom, and then either they ask them to strip,smoke cigarettes,get into a fight, insults the president or the minister of education. They cause some ladies to carry trunks on their heads and parading themselves that they are pregnant because of the double track system. Why would educated people stoop so low to denigrate fellow human beings this way, I cannot fathom.

Why is free SHS an anathema to the NDC? Two things, history has shown us in Ghana that because they hardly perform when they get power, they do not WANT an enlightened society especially those in the rural communities, who form about 70% of our national population. The more uneducated they are the more ignorant they become and the more you can pollute them with fabrications, lies and propaganda. Two, they have always hated competition,so fewer the merrier.

Until PNDC/NDC came to power right from the late 70s through the 90s, Ghana possessed one of the best education standards in the world but with their wicked propaganda agenda, then spearheaded by Professor Kofi Awonoor, they set the down slide in motion. Immediately after the Nigerian Civil War, they embarked upon Free Universal Education, remember, many Ghanaian teachers went there to teach but Ghana, then under Rawlings did not care. When the whole world had embraced the UN (UNESCO) 1970s policy of 2+6+3+3+4, that two years kindergarten, Six years primary,three years Junior High School, 3 Years Senior High School and Four years University, which should be free, Ghana did not do that. Ghana continued the 2+6+4+5+2+4, Two years kindergarten,Six years Primary School, 4 years Middle School,5 Years Secondary, Two Years Upper Six and 4 Years university but with stringent entry requirement. One has to pass the Common Entrance Examination and then the parents should be prepared to pay for tuition,lodging,examination fees as well as PTA fees.

The Ghanaian Child’s counterparts in Nigeria,Lesotho,South Africa even under the apartheid rule,Lesotho,Botswana,Kenya,Uganda, Swaziland and most African countries went straight to Secondary School from Primary School class six without any entrance examination. We in Ghana had to grapple with the fees I have mentioned above and eligibility at Middle School form 4 or Standard Ten.

They have caused all these delays purposely to make it impossible that Ghana would achieve any universal free education as envisaged by the UN. Since the coming into effect of the 1992 Constitution, the NDC had known all along that, there should be free SHS but what have they done? 1993 to 2000 and 2009 to 2016. How I wish they had a magic wand to stop child birth in Ghana until they were ready as they kept promising 20 years time. So far from 1992 until 2017, over 10 to 15 million young boys and girls were denied High School in Ghana and the result is the teeming youth that cannot read and write. Their crime? They were not born into the affluent homes of the NDC so at age 13 years, they were consigned to a world where only the fittest, the ELITE EDUCATED survive.

Ghana in name, the outsider would think we are the best in terms of education and you may be right because our first President, Kwame Nkrumah set the bar very high but the myopic,opportunistic, adventure minded NDC kept lowering it until 2017.

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