Needed: A ‘Cape Coast Education Authority’
It’s fitting to conclude this third - in the series of reflections - by paraphrasing a most potent remark by Jesus (Matthew 15:8) as follows: These people drew near with their mouths and their lips, but their hearts are far from applications or practice.
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That observation is as precise as they come: a concise definition of our system of education in Ghana in particular, and Africa in general: namely, to
“Chew, pour, pass, forget, and be poor”. Jesus’s allusion to the passive state of mind and lack of action pervade through adult life where possibilities are hardly applied, even when those prospects glare as best practices in other nations.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority
The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), for instance, was enacted to support the area’s educational system, running ads that support a Vision, “No matter what your academic interest, you will find an institution of higher learning to accommodate your curiousity.”
Thousands of students from all walks of life choose to study in Greater Boston. The area boasts about 54 institutions from Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to 2 year community colleges. Some are governmental, non-profit, profit, and private ventures. The BRA monitors and supports the institutions through master plans for expansions including facilities such as housing, dormitories, on-campus and off-campus facilities in the area. As an education hub, the Boston area alone employs about 70,000 people. The total contribution to the Gross City Product is US$4.9 billion; the Gross State Product is a whopping US$6.2 billion. Students and student visitors spend about US$2 billion a year annually in the Boston area.
A Cape Coast Education Authority
It is on that successful model that a Cape Coast Education Authority (CCEA) is needed to develop a similar international mindset for Cape Coast schools. The genesis of developing Cape Coast as an education hub in West Africa sprang from the mid-1800s by three visionary personalities namely, Alexander Crummell (1819 – 1898), James Africanus Horton (1835 – 1883), and Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832 – 1912).
Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford (1866 – 1930) - who himself continued his education at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, after Mfantsipim – was influenced by the three for superior education in the sub-region. On that basis, he met a strong ally in the person of the African American, W.E.B. Du Bois (1868 -1963) who was to exert similar influences on Kwame Nkrumah.
In his memoirs, F.L. Bartels credited Nkrumah with “a deep concern regarding purposeful higher education” which he had planned through Cape Coast University. As a member of the planning committee, Bartels suggested a holistic design incorporating the town itself as an international enclave for academic tourism. But the committee rather supported a design completely separated from the town.
Today, the potential to enhance prosperity along the lines of Boston is there similarly for Cape Coast, but the foresight must correspond. Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), for example, suggest that we cannot continue doing the same old things and expect international results. A poor mindset repels progress; as we say in Twi, Ye de kaka sei nam. Mass poverty in the midst of great possibilities is not in Ghana’s local or international interests. A shift from the old mindset is necessary.
Decade after decade, both the Ministry of Education and its adjunct, the Ghana Education Service - with over 12,000 basic schools under their purview – continue to struggle with the lack of desks, lack of toilets and water for good hygiene, absentee teachers, broken doors and windows of classrooms, dusty landscapes, and massive failure rates in the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) in some districts.
With these perennial, unresolved local problems still on their plate, they should be spared the 21st century prospects of running quality schools at par with the best international standards. Public Private Partnerships (PPP) have become absolute necessities, under new management systems altogether with international attraction including the relevant examining boards, methods of instructions with application of knowledge and not the usual chew, pour, pass, and forget types.
Again, why squeeze more and more students into old existing facilities already bursting at the seams when organised partnerships or as some suggest “private limited status by guarantee” can be brought in to create more facilities.
Moses Baiden related to a speech he delivered as the Guest Speaker at Mfantsipim’s 137th Speech Day in 2013. He said we need to build “on our 140-year brand to attract students from all over the world … There has been no time like this in history where the most important factor to facilitate transformation of societies is the mind and creativity of people, and not capital. If we can achieve this we will not only change Ghana, we can change the fortunes of Africa.”
He asked, “What subventions have governments given the school that a well thought out financial model, balancing fee paying and scholarships cannot solve, if we are selling education that is superior and has willing buyers in the market?”
At the MOBA National Conference (January 23, 2016) at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Centre, Teshie, Accra, it was heartwarming to hear fraternal messages from alumni of Adisadel, St Augustine’s, Ghana National, Wesley Girls, Holy Child and Mfantsiman supporting our joint mission to elevate Cape Coast to the highest standards.
In his message from Ghana National, Egbert Faibille remarked, “We of Ghana National College are happy [that] Mfantsipim is one of the reasons Ghana National exists; the others being St. Augustine’s College and Adisadel College.”
Time for us to work together to elevate Cape Coast to the status that our forebears imagined. The superior examples there.
[Email: anishaffar@gmail.com]