When children are nurtured to develop alert, enquiring, adaptable minds and joyful hearts, they are able to direct their own evaluation, learning and judgments, while teachers act as facilitators of the learning process.
Because students are actively involved and are allowed a degree of autonomy in the process, their learning more readily takes root in their conscience and behaviours. [Playful Participatory Research: The Pedagogy of Play Research Team. July 2016].
A nation is only as relevant as the quality of its people. And quality, like charity, begins at the foundation. Basic education harnesses the foundational constructs of the intellectual, psychological, emotional, social and physical development of the nation’s human capital.
It is, therefore, the most important domain, next to the family system, to inculcate and nurture lifelong values and mould character. It sets the framework that influences how the country’s human resource occupies its time.
A very important and solemn responsibility is placed on government, policymakers, providers, administrators and teachers of basic education, as well as parents as builders, providers, watchers and protectors of Ghana’s basic education.
Our task is to ensure that the nation’s most crucial asset, its human resource, is well equipped for higher levels of thinking, discipline, moral standards, lifetime values and decisions for fine spiritual, social and global engagement.
The results we achieve with this task will deeply influence the trajectory of Ghana’s growth and relevance on the global playfield for centuries.
The depth of our understanding of our role, and the degree of integrity we assign to it should translate into transformational gains for the nation.
By integrity, I mean the relevance, robustness, resilience and sustainability of the end product of our work.
Is integrity inextricably interwoven in every applicable model of learning is tailored and applied to curricula? Are strong universally esteemed values being inculcated into the conscience and sub-conscious of administrators, teachers and pupils alike?
Have important cognitive and character-building principles which create a healthy balance between the old ways and the new way forward been considered? Will the outputs generate and produce in our children novel ways of thinking, higher levels of illumination, and the confidence to take bold, compelling, righteous actions that should eventually propel Ghana to the first-world status?
The Bible recounts a parable where a master entrusted talents to each of his servants before he travelled, and told them: “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13…). While some of them invested their talents wisely, and yielded returns for the master, one servant told him on his return: I know you are a hard man who harvests where you haven’t sown, so I buried the talents you gave me, and here I have returned same to you.
To this his master condemned him, and his talent taken from him and given to another. What underscored the attitude of this servant?
Curiously, the attitudes of many workers in Ghana today are perceived to follow that of the servant who took no interest in investing his talent.
Consider the popular Akan saying: “Aban wonnsua, wotwoo n’adze.” [Government is not to be hoisted, but dragged aground] Conversely, we are told with reference to Christ’s kingdom: “And the government will be upon His shoulder”. How do the two compare?
Given the opportunity, are we carrying the task upon our shoulders as said of Christ, or dragging it aground like the unprofitable servant? Everything we are and have is a gift and an investment from our generous Creator. But we have a choice to improve on it or destroy it. And we WILL account for our choices without exception.
So I ask you: What is your occupation? How are you accounting for it? And will your work endure if it is revealed and tested by fire?
The importance of nurturing children cannot be over-emphasized. Again, the Bible says of them: of such is the kingdom of heaven made. And “Whoso shall cause any one of these little ones who believe in me to fall, it would be better for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea (Matthew 18:6).” How do we feel about that?
Fellow policymakers, providers, administrators, teachers of basic education and parents, I’m certain you have worked very hard already, and for that I congratulate you; but we “have promises to keep and miles to go before [we] sleep”, and for that I encourage you – to ‘occupy’ well that you may earn great rewards and not be ashamed. And for the sake of posterity, and the children of Ghana, may God help us all do well in our various occupations.