WHY THIS BOY?

How will you feel being in a village sighting a primary pupil’s boy going to and coming back from school with torn school uniforms? Oh my God, after seeing me, he stared at me and slowly walked to the school! What had he done? My mind asked? I am powerless to save him, but what could be done to assist some of these students?

Ever since I went to Tordzinu a suburb of Akasti in the Volta region of Ghana for a funeral, I realized that my presence status was programmed by God to learn the limitations of freedom. My journey from Accra via Sogakofe to Akasti has helped me learn a lot from the town. It is good to learn so that when you get to the peak, you will know how to assist the less privilege in the society.

It is a disturbing that when politicians get to the top, they forget about the ways to refine the lives of students in abjected educational poverty. When they find themselves there, they forget about the difficulties students in the rural areas as far as education is concerned.

Enough of that. As I sat thinking about how government through the ministry of education could be used to save these children, my head spoke a dialect about the provision of educational facilities and extension of the get fund policy to the affected areas in the country. The get fund works equally, as well helping parents to pay fees for their lads.

Education has been the key to great success chalked by many people in the world of today. From the colonial time when we were subjects, we tried even to think and educate ourselves more in order to take control of affairs.

But we live in a country where society is between the have and have nots. There are numerous polarizations, profiling and so forth.

Beforehand, the 1992 constitution of Ghana states in chapter five the fundamental human rights of citizens which to me are woefully seen in the educational sector in the far remote areas of the country. Yes once President of the US, as Abraham Lincoln described government as “government of the people by the people for the people”, which in a normal sense we are all part of the developmental process in the educational sector of the country.

Individuals have tried to solve this educational poverty across the regions, their efforts are quite enough but not to the very best. Occasionally I hear and read from our leaders in the newspapers saying our “future leaders” at some meeting grounds without being concerned about the plight of those students in the neglected areas across the country.

Is Ghana doing enough to halt educational handicaps through the provision of educational facilities and get fund as a policy? Because this is not about me, but it is about your brother, sister, niece, nephew or a friend. Allowing parents only to cater for their lads in schools will not help to some extent.

We need to place guilt where it needs to be. We need to take responsibility for our actions. Nobody cares about the poor who we always hoist as future leaders to come, but when they become social viruses of crimes, immoral and drop out from school such as what Karl Marx propounded the uprising of the poor against the rich in the capitalist societies, we rather blame the inability of the guardians for this. I accept the freedom limits, but it is my candid opinion.

As curiosity kills the cat, I bothered to ask of the problem of the young boy I saw and I was told his parents were poor and early morning he need to farm before going to school.

If this boy was to be in Accra, his case could have been different. If communities were helped by their DCEs or MPs to build community educational facilities, effective educational policies, we would have such horrendous educational trauma?

The poor areas are where most of the educational poverty comes from. We need to fund more programmes to help the poor get out of poverty. We need to address the causes of educational poverty, rather than the sweetness of it, i.e if we want to build a better society.

So therefore why this boy!

By Ebenezer Zor