Here in Ghana, they tell you to learn in preschool, basic school, junior high and senior high just so you can go to the university. If you’re lucky , you make it to the university to study a course you actually want to study or for most people a course their parents choose for them or a course they know nothing about. The lucky ones ge to learn a skill or two in the process. Eventually, you graduate from university only to find out there’s no job for you. So you apply for a masters or PhD just to keep being in the system and not feel like a burden until you’re able to figure something out for yourself and your life.
As much as most people would deny it, this is the reality of most Ghanaian youth today. I look back and wonder why our teachers made school look like a competition to us to som extent. Back in junior high, I had a teacher who used to give two students from my class exams questions before the exams so they could top the class and this was because they were enrolled in an extra class with him and myself and some others weren’t interested. That however didn’t stop someone like myself from topping the class. Along the line, it started to get toxic because some of my mates started to feel it was a competition but man, we were just in junior high school.
I don’t know about others, but growing up I knew that getting good grades in school was a good thing. I wasn’t one to struggle with my academics and so I wouldn’t be able to fully comprehend how those who weren’t good with grades felt. But trust me when I say that making it in life isn’t about grades. I have classmates who are making it big today in life but back then, they used to place last position in class. To some extent , I’d like to blame some patent for the unhealthy competition going on between students in school. Some parents are so hard on their kids they start to project negativity on them.
Kids are pure beings and we should know that the kind of things we tell them and do to them affect them more than we think. I’ve thought in the university for quite sometime now and believe me, the kind of things some of our wards are doing just to get an A or B would leave you speechless. It’s a surprise to me how someone would choose to not learn but will be more than willing to give their body to a lecturer in exchange for results and in doing this, they make those who are actually learning look like they aren’t studying enough.
School is for the purpose of gaining knowledge. Good grades it’s a good thing but what’s the essence of good grades if it doesn’t reflect practically in your work life. Education should be made to look beautiful and rewarding to students instead of making it look like a battle among themselves. This way, we get to actually educate and raise the future leaders we hope for.
all images belong to me.
