DREAMS DEFERRED AND FULFILLED…
I have felt like an alien in Ghana this week. I have been pleasantly surprised at the issues on which the Ghanaian decides to show his or her righteous indignation. I am quite happy that we have started having conversations on the sort of textbooks we use in our schools. I must say I wasn’t surprised about some of the nonsensical stuff in some of the books coupled with very poor grammatical constructions. The political undertones of some of the reactions doesn’t also surprise me much. I’m however appalled and alarmed by the call of a section of the public on the state to act. I am appalled by the strong advocacy for censorship of textbooks written by private individuals. It is interesting how we do not see that as an affront to free speech.
Do I think what was written in those two books, particularly those highlighted on social media, is in good taste? Hell no! Aside from the poor grammar, the content in most of these books leaves much to be desired. It is instructive to also note that there is a difference between “based on the new NACCA syllabus” and “approved by GES”. The Ghana Education Service and NACCA have both denied approving those two books in question for use in Ghanaian schools. We must therefore be wary in creating a leviathan in the state by inviting it to areas where it has no business.
The state has no business going after private businesses no matter how stupid what they have written appears to sane minds, as long as those statements do not go beyond the remits of free speech. I am not a defender of “hate speech”. I believe hate speech is fairly regulated under our current legal regime. Where the state believes the boundary of free speech has been crossed, the state can act including prosecutions. However, in the case of controversial, stupid, and nonsensical statement written in textbooks, I believe the best way to regulate this is through the market mechanism whilst the NACCA continues with its regulatory function of approval. Once this nonsensical stuff contained in the book are pilloried and denounced in public, the market itself will regulate the system by drying up sales for the “disgraced” publisher.
I have read with mild amazement that a number of schools have/had the two textbooks on their recommended textbooks even though they had not been approved by NACCA. I am hesitant to criticize the NACCA because, to be fair to them, they made available publicly the list of all recommended textbooks for the various subjects a few months ago. However, the Ghana Education Service (GES), especially the NACCA and The National School Inspectorate Authority (NaSIA) must clamp down on schools recommending unapproved textbooks for parents/pupils.
It is common practice to see publishers exerting pressure on school heads and subject teachers to recommend their textbooks. Whilst I am ideologically in favour of multiple publishers competing in a subject area, it is important that NaSIA monitor schools in adhering to the recommended textbooks. The competition is supposed to bring out the best from various publishing houses, but we must also be wary of other publishing houses who may just be looking for an opportunity to gain economically. The NACCA must constantly review its approval processes and regularly engage the public on its regulatory functions.
Last week I spoke about the apparent neglect of our museums and other monuments. I have always wondered how we lay claim to the concept of culture and our history and yet seem to do so little in protecting that cultural legacy. The state of our national museum must be a source of worry for every Ghanaian. I am sorry however that I have got the unenviable task of being the bearer of glimmer news today too.
In 2017, we were all ecstatic after Ghana won the maritime dispute case against Cote D’Ivoire at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). While we celebrated the yeoman job done by the legal team, the one group that proved crucial to the victory of the country in the background is the Public Records and the Archives Administration Department (PRAAD). The department provided all the necessary archival materials that enabled the lawyers to present a strong case against Cote D’Ivoire. The Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) is the organisation responsible for the upkeep of public records, archives, and documents in the country.
I visited the regional office of the PRAAD in Cape Coast a couple of years ago. It was a sad spectacle. The department in the region is at the risk of losing very important historical documents due to preservation challenges. The department is chronically underfunded and needs urgent funding in order to perform its constitutionally mandated function. It wouldn’t take much to fix the roofing leakages at the office and the faulty air-conditioning system. We can’t keep talking about cultural heritage when one of the most important institutions for the preservation of our culture is dying out slowly.
It is shocking that we are still struggling to come to terms with digitization of records at PRAAD offices across the country. Though digitization won’t solve all the challenging issues facing PRAAD, it would go a long way in addressing some of these issues. We desperately need to save the important documents left in the care of the department after the destruction of thousands of files through flooding, roofing leakages and others. That is the minimum we can do to save this important state institution.
I spent last weekend traveling through the Anlo and Keta districts of the Volta region of Ghana. I decided five years ago to visit a place in Ghana I have never been to before on my birthday annually. Last year, I was in Akwamu-fie. This year I was in the Anlo area with four good friends celebrating my birthday.
My first point of call in Keta was the 17th century Danish fort, Fort Prinzenstein, built in 1784. Though large sections of the fort have been literally washed away by sea erosion, there is still significant remnants of the structure standing, which is publicly opened to the public. The fort is managed by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board with a tour guide available on standby. The present state of the fort mirrors the predicament of the wider Keta metropolis. As I understand from my conversations with local residents, it is not just the fort that is at risk of total collapse from sea erosion but the whole Keta town itself. Keta lies beautifully between the largest lagoon in Ghana and the Atlantic Ocean. This beauty unfortunately carries a burden. Keta is prone to flooding from activities from both sides. Looking at the present map of the town, one cannot help but notice the narrowing strip of the land between the lagoon and the sea.
In the midst of the gloom, there is one thing about the coastline of Keta. It is incredibly neat and well-maintained unlike most beaches in Ghana. The “Emancipation Beach” is simply breathtaking. The food at “Eli Beach Resort” was also very good and incredibly affordable.
There is also the beautiful “Chill River Resort” at Tunu-Anyanu. It is definitely a must-visit destination. The boat ride to the islands was just fantastic and scarry for my aquaphobia self. It was humbling seeing at first hand once thriving fishing communities reduced to ghost villages and narrow heap of sand between the river and the ocean, only reachable by boat because of rising sea levels. Rising sea-levels as a result of climate change have taken whole parts of the village with them into the sea. From my understanding, some of these villages just few years ago lied about five kilometres from the coastline. Now the waves are just metres away with the coastline just about thirty metres away from land. Unfortunately, most of these villages lie in between the Keta lagoon and the sea, making inward resettlement virtually impossible. The only possible solution is a comprehensive resettlement to safer grounds. But this may pose it own challenges. Residents are strongly attached to their ancestral homes and rather see the construction of sea defense walls as the solution. Aside the bigger threat of rising sea levels as a result of climate change making sea defense walls not impenetrable to future oceanic surges into the coastal landscapes, sea defense walls are quite expensive to construct. On the average, it costs 90 million dollars to construct a 10-kilometre sea defense wall. It is simply impossible to build an entire defense wall for the entire 550-kilometre coastline of the entire country.
I didn’t intend to dampen your mood with the grim description of the fate of the island communities I visited. But one sure thing I can definitely tell you is, Volta Region is naturally beautiful. Take a visit the next time you have a chance…