Extend alumni support to public basic schools

Over the years, alumni support has been one of the key facilitators in Ghana’s education system, particularly at the senior high school level. 

However, it is also imperative to channel these same resources to equip education at the basic level.

This thought was inspired by Dr Mary Asabea Ashun’s article ‘The Power of alumni giving: How high school alumni are transforming education’. 

In Ghana, both basic and senior high schools have enormous support to gain by drawing on the successes of former students.

All other things being equal, a child's foundation determines how he or she will be in the future. 

Alumni in basic school

However, the need for alumni giving, particularly in public basic schools, is severely neglected to the detriment of our future leaders.

If alumni contributing to their various SHS did not have a solid foundation at their basic schools, they would not have the opportunity to boast about their SHS.

In Ghana, most prominent leaders attended public basic schools, which shaped them to become who they are today.

However, they choose to contribute massively to their SHSs and neglect their basic schools, which may be in deplorable conditions.

When alumni extend their giving to their basic schools, it gives the students hope to study hard with the notion of becoming like their “old students.”

For instance, the Minister of Education and his Deputy had their basic education in the Northern part of Ghana, where most of the students are known to be performing abysmally in the BECE.

Consequently, if alumni giving is extended to public basic schools in the Northern Region, there will probably be a turnaround in student outcomes and the production of more prominent figures, like both ministers.

Role model

In June 2024, during the 90th anniversary of the Komenda M/A Basic School ‘B’, the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, and the Technical Advisor to the Education Minister, Professor George Oduro, who are past students, used themselves as an example for students to emulate.

This depicts the fact that alumni giving, in a way, can support current pupils by nurturing their aspirations and abilities. 
Research shows that contributions made in education are directly responsible for a staggering 50 per cent of global economic growth in the last three decades.

Changing the narrative

Even though certain individuals do support their basic schools, it does not yield the expected standard, thereby leading to poor student outcomes and the disdain for education, particularly by children in rural communities.

While development operations in public basic schools keep lagging, the narrative can be changed from individual to alumni giving through renovating school buildings, supplying modern teaching and learning materials, creating an incentive scheme for teachers, providing scholarships to brilliant, needy students and promoting the psychological development to students with disabilities and poor financial backgrounds. 

A call to action

Implementing a call to action on alumni giving to public basic schools can be deduced from the 2022 Transforming Education Summit on Education Investment, which has immense long-term rewards.

The cost of not investing in education is colossal; therefore, an urgent paradigm shift is needed to prioritise and extend alumni giving to basic schools. 

To help achieve SDG4, alumni giving to basic schools must be seen as a strategic long-term investment, not as a cost.

Now is the time to support public education and unlock the full potential of the next generation. The stakes are too high to put the future on hold.

The writer is a PhD candidate, Educational Leadership Department of Education, University of Bath.