The reported assertion by UT Holdings’ boss Prince Kofi Amoabeng a few years ago, in reaction to the collapse of UT Bank; that he regrets giving jobs to only first class graduates raises serious issues that go to the very heart of how our educational system is structured and what it is intended to deliver in terms of human resource.
Does the way children are raised in this culture really build them up to thrive in this ever-changing technologically-driven globalized world?
Many well-meaning Ghanaians are worried about our one-step-forward-two-steps-backwards development. Indeed, if Ghana is not where we want her to be, we must necessarily question why. Are we getting the best out of Ghanaians? We are obviously not, though some may disagree.
Parenting style issues
First, the way most of us are brought up does not allow for the smooth development of certain traits that are essential for us to excel as individuals.
Chief among these traits are self-efficacy, self-esteem, assertiveness, and creativity.
Self-efficacy refers to that sense of competence and faith in one’s own abilities to have an impact on one’s circumstances and environment, which enables optimistic rather than pessimistic thinking.
Self-efficacy also enables the belief that no matter what the circumstances, something could be done to achieve the desired outcome as opposed to the belief that events are beyond our control and effort is futile in the face of obstacles, which leads to one giving up altogether.
Self-efficacy promotes of self-motivation, optimism and self-control.
Self-efficacy develops in a child when parents are supportive and responsive to the needs of that child right from day one of the child’s life.
When people are lacking in self-efficacy, they experience varying degrees of depression, which leaves them with feelings of hopelessness and helplessness as well as difficulty in controlling negative thoughts.
The majority of Ghanaian parents prefer the application of physical punishment, criticism, verbal abusiveness, and an authoritarian approach in raising their children with little or no outward expression of love, such as hugging and saying, “I love you”, or voicing of praise for good behaviour.
Poor parents, especially, those who have genuine concern for the welfare of their children tend to experience high levels of stress, which promotes this harmful style of parenting.
In addition, many children in Ghana are raised in mother-only families because fathers are absent for various reasons, which creates a lot of stress on the mothers and negatively affects their parenting behaviours.
There are also many negative psychological impacts of father-absence on children.
The problem is that because we learn to parent from how we were parented (and we all like to believe we were well brought up) we apply similar parenting styles even if we are not poor.
Such upbringing discourages the child from voicing his or her feelings and thoughts, or attempting to assert himself or herself.
There are also many Ghanaian children who receive nothing close to anything that can be called parenting as they are left pretty much on their own most of the time, with no clue how to comport themselves socially, without love, and ignorant about what their strengths and weaknesses are.
They grow up having developed personality difficulties. The result of all this is high risk of low levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy in these children
Self-efficacy is not the only positive trait that is affected by our brand of upbringing.
Creativity is also severely hampered by nurturing environments which provide low levels of stimulation, like those associated with poverty, low quality housing and living in low socio-economic neighbourhoods, poorly designed, and resourced educational systems.
Under such conditions, the individual tends to be preoccupied with how to deal with their anxiety, stress and general unhappiness.
All this takes away from the calmness of mind and mental focus required for a person to be imaginative and therefore creative.
In trying to deal with these emotional outcomes, inappropriate and harmful means are applied by most; usually including risky ventures and finding pleasurable activities (alcohol, drugs, food, sex, etc.). it is easy to see this from the number of adverts in our media space that promote aphrodisiacs and alcohol and the proliferation of drinking spots in our urban spaces as well as the high patronage of gambling games and entertainment activities. In the presence of the difficulty in being creative, many Ghanaians indeed would rather try to get by or get rich whilst doing very little by way of applying creativity and the exertion of significant mental effort, and this is one of the bases for corruption that we see multiplying within our society.
Upbringing, which discourages or even punishes assertiveness or standout behaviours in children kills any unique attributes children may have, instead of exploring or cultivating them.
Children are made to know and left with no choice than to conform because it is the only way to fit in and obtain acceptance from loved ones.
Through this they grow up into copies of the adults in their lives, and become both the good and the bad of their subculture, aspiring to attain the same behaviour and heights of achievement.
Non-questioning conformity leads to the creation of a culture which does not engender positive or significant development.
A faulty educational system?
Another dimension of our problem is an educational system that does not harness the unique abilities of each child, but rather puts all children in one box.
They are made to link their self-worth to their academic achievements.
Right at the start of their education children are taught to evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to their peers and made to feel good if they measure up and vice versa.
Our educational system is generally intolerant of children who are slow starters academically. By the time these slow starters come into their own and are ready to catch up, their self-esteem would have been so battered by parents and teachers that it is beyond any possibility of recovery.
We love to reward talent rather than encourage effort.
Generally, our school system does create adequate opportunities for children to discover other abilities outside academic ones, with the result that so many children become adults without discovering their talents and having made peace with the mistaken notion that they are good for nothing.
Many schools do not seriously promote any other sports activity besides football; and physical education periods are not effectively utilized for the purpose of games and sports.
Things like musical, artistic, entrepreneurial and emotional abilities are seldom identified and nurtured.
Many Ghanaian children therefore emerge from our educational system with low levels of belief in themselves and lacking in skills, a situation which plays no mean role in promoting many of our problematic attitudes and behaviours.
A lot of Ghanaians are living unfulfilled lives as they find themselves in jobs and professions they do not feel cut for just to make money, a situation contributing to the widespread poor job performance seen in most organizations.
Motherless citizens
According to Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs, people are motivated to first fulfill their deficiency or survival needs failing which they experience unpleasant feelings or consequences.
People whose deficiency needs remain unmet cannot exhibit the desirable behaviours that promote national development.
Indeed most Ghanaians perceive themselves as being in this category.
When people face life, which entails just a quest to meet the basic needs of food, water, safety and security, their concern about their personal growth and love for neighbor or country is compromised.
They would do anything to survive.
Looking at the masses in Ghana, one cannot help but feel like they are pretty much on their own.
They seem to have made peace with the fact that the nation cannot cater for their welfare as individuals.
Failure of governments to guarantee sustenance for citizens, security, justice, and security for their future, results in the creation of a jungle state of survival of the fittest in which each person feels obligated to find means to survive and to secure their future and that of their families.
There are no safety nets.
Unemployed people are vulnerable and many are under-employed, whilst mentally and physically challenged people have remained the burden of their families.
The stress that arises out of knowing that you are on your own leads to desperation and a tendency to grab whatever resource or opportunity is within reach regardless of whether it is legal or not and whether it affects the nation or not, in order to survive.
These include corruption in all its forms, fraud, stealing, armed robbery, etc.
A lot of despair is triggered by the realization that rather than hard work, other factors over which over which one has no power determine one’s success, and this is driving many Ghanaians into dishonorable activities in a bid to secure themselves and their families.
Involvement in such dishonorable activities has now become easier because they have become the norm.
Citizens under stress
The combination of all this with our weak and underdeveloped systems and inadequate infrastructure- irregular power supply, bad, inadequate road infrastructure, poor water supply, under-resourced and antiquated systems, low wages, widespread corruption, poor housing, lack of social services-represents a significant source of stress on the citizenry.
A major effect of stress on people is that it exhausts will power, resulting in poor self-regulation, low self-motivation and intolerance as well as hopelessness.
These manifest in citizens being generally demoralized, short-fused, depressed, and lawless. Littering, selling just anywhere, disobeying traffic regulations, fighting, interpersonal conflicts, mob action, just to mention a few, are manifestations of such internal states and should not come as a surprise.
The fundamentally flawed economy that this country operates neither supports individual enterprise nor provides living wages.
This places a responsibility on parents and families to continue providing for their children long into their adult years and to bear the responsibility of supporting their members who lose their livelihoods or are unemployable for various reasons.
Government plays no role in such situations. Families therefore feel justified expecting and demanding more, economically, from their children who are fortunate to get employed; a sort of mandatory payback for the ‘investment’ made into their lives.
This creates fertile grounds for corruption, greed, selfishness, nepotism, tribalism and many other vices to flourish, as employed Ghanaians try to maximize by fair or foul means the benefits of their employment.
A flawed mentality
Complicating the foregoing is the emergence of a shift in our mentality as Ghanaians.
As tropical African peoples, we used to have nature and food in abundance and never had to worry about what to eat now or in the future.
We therefore had no need to use advanced agricultural practices to store food harvests, unlike those in the temperate countries who use sophisticated agriculture and highly developed food storage methods to guarantee their survival in a treacherous climate.
People in these regions have learned to carefully plan and prepare for the future due to the scarcity and unpredictability of resources.
The result is that whilst they developed a scarcity mentality we in Africa developed an abundance mentality. Global changes in climatic conditions in Africa have led to unpredictable food supply whilst globalization has led to multiplication of what people consider their basic needs, to include electronic gadgets, means of transportations and self-ownership housing.
The two mentalities manifest in different ways.
In spite of the scarcity that we now face as a tropical people, we are still operating with the abundance mentality. This is seen variously in our failure to plan, lack of respect for time, our lax compliance to social norms (indiscipline and lawlessness), our laid back (not proactive) nature, and our insensitivity to lurking danger and threats to our lives and survival.
At the same time, we have been caught up in the downsides of the scarcity mentality, which manifests in various ways.
The thinking that there is never enough promotes a tendency to be competitive and to want to accumulate material things.
These tendencies put us at risk of greed and corruption.
We have difficulty working in teams and sharing recognition, credit, power or profit.
Being genuinely happy when others close to us succeed is also a problem.
There is no loving and caring for the weak among us.
We forget that we cannot prosper as a collective if we neglect the weak.
The notion that resources are scarce is also a constant drain on our cognitive resources (brain power).
We therefore only attend to urgent things and overvalue immediate benefits without thinking of the future, planning, looking at the big picture or taking a long-term perspective of life.
We therefore have become a people that spend instead of saving or investing.
The limitation of brain resources also reduces will power and makes it difficult for us to resist present temptation and to do important things like obeying laws and being patriotic.
We also have a tendency to blame government, our families and/or society for our woes, rather than taking responsibility for own problems.