How good were the olden days?

A popular refrain among the elderly is their reference to the good old days at the least provocation. There is always a feeling of nostalgia among the older generations. They always feel that they have seen better days and better times. Whatever happens today cannot be compared to what have passed by, they strongly believe.

But I have recently come to realise that the youth or the younger generation do not feel they are in bad times, in spite of all the challenges. They can even tell the older generation in the face that the times we call good old days can be compared to living in the dark ages.

Not quite long ago, l happened to be at the alumni office at the Commonwealth Hall to do some work. One of the national service persons who serves as the alumni relations officer was with me. I asked him to download and print some information for me.

Then he started laughing. I must admit that I somehow like the boy. One of the reasons being, he attended one of the not-very-well-endowed schools in Ashanti, Jachie-Pramso Senior High School, popularly called JAPASS. I have always admired him for making it to  the University of Ghana ,Legon, from JAPASS.

When I asked him why he was laughing, his answer was that he wondered how we were able to get information for our dissertations, long essays, and thesis during our time at the university, about half a century ago.

Then he told me after pressing buttons here and there that he had got me all the information I needed on a particular subject whereas in the past, he added, I would have been jumping from one library to the other looking for some particular book that would only give me part of what I was looking for.

What the young man told me actually set me thinking. As I drove home from Legon, my mind went to our days at the university. I thought we had the best of times. Everybody was on scholarship. Feeding was free. We had neatly dressed stewards going round the dining hall ready to listen to us and do our wishes. Yes, food was no problem.

Then we had cleaners making sure our rooms were swept every morning and our beds well laid for us as if we were in a hotel.

Then here am I today more than four decades later, with all the hardships students are going through paying fees, feeding themselves, somebody who has just finished university is telling me we were living in the dark ages.

In fact, the young man was just short of telling me that we should stop talking about any good old days. If there are any good days, it is what we are all experiencing now.

Having made some comparisons, who am I not to agree with the young man. Some 50 years ago, the total student population at Legon was not more than 2000. The university had some of the best lecturers one could find anywhere.

Today, the total student population is around 30,000. Most of the lecturers, if not all, are Ghanaians who also passed through the university.

At a time when we talk about fall in the standard of education, we find many students making First Class. As for Second Class Upper, the least said about it, the better.

Yet in what we called the good old days and with high standards, only few could make First Class. There could be only two or three in a whole year.

So with all the challenges students face at the university, if they could come out with so many First Classes, shouldn’t we accept that the times are better!

No doubt technology has contributed to improvements in all spheres of our lives. I still remember that in our days at the university in the late 60’s, we were not even used to photocopying.

Fortunately, we had all the books we needed at the bookshop. But if we should be asked to make photocopies of some documents we had to go to only one place. That was a shop near the Globe Cinema in Accra. But today at every corner in Legon, you will find a place where you can make photocopies of any document.

Then if we look at the living conditions of individuals can we say that things were better 50 years ago than today? Definitely not!

Today everybody wants to own a house and everybody wants to ride in his own car. Those who don’t have houses of their own rent flats or bungalows paying a lot of money.

But it was not so in the past when the well-to-do in those days rented single rooms which they occupied with their families.

Very few people owned cars in those days. It was very easy to travel by taxi which charged about 20 pesewas for all four occupants.

Definitely the older generation will remember the days when they were growing up with some nostalgia. It was a simple society when each was his brother’s keeper.

But can we take anything away from today’s generation? They did not see what we saw. Rather, we have seen both sides of the coin. It is a fast world controlled and dominated by Information, Communications Technology (ICT).  The elderly are only struggling to  not be swept away by the waves. 

Credit must be given to science and technology for the rapid development man has made. But we can only forget where we are coming from at our peril. Simplicita.