The world acclaimed Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 1948, and the many other protocols such as UNESCO Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), et cetera are the basic principles upon which education is established and guided as far as the development of an individual in this Information Age and civilization is concerned.
Ghana, like many other countries in this world, has ratified these protocols and so, are enjoined by the laws of 1992 Constitution under Article 40 (1) (d) to adhere and by that, implement the principles or ideals in those documents to give to the ordinary child the right to education and the enjoyment of other facilities and opportunities that comes with it.
The Right to education, for instance, is concretized by the UDHR under Article 26 (1) which emphatically states that, “Everyone has the right to education.” Therefore, based on the 1992 Constitution, it goes without saying in Article 12 (1) that regardless of “race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, religion, creed or gender” an individual within the purview of this land called Ghana shall, as captured also under Article 25 (1), be entitled to “equal educational opportunities and facilities”.
With the benefit of hindsight, I ask this question: do individuals or persons with right to education enjoy these fundamental human rights, and if they do, to what degree possible, are they implemented for one’s benefit?
There are quite a substantial number of young people, most whom are above the ages of five (5) or seven (7), clearly suggesting to all who matter that they are of school-going age, but for reasons best known to both parents and government, are rather wandering on our filthy streets wasting away their untapped potential without having to, at least, sit under rusted roofs to be imparted with knowledge.
Where pupils at tender ages should rather have time to be creative and innovative in their respective areas in order that they may be well capacitated and empowered to compete their counterparts in other parts of the world, they have rather been abandoned and “banished” to their own fate of bleak and doomed future.
In recent times, we have worryingly had the benefit of listening to and reading reports from across this country indicating that teaching and learning materials as well as proper logistics are unavailable at the various schools to provide the necessary conditions conducive to learning to enable those at school to realize the full benefit of education.
On the one hand, pupils at school suffer all day in endless search for healthy meals and clean water to enable them study but, unfortunately, their tireless efforts, oftentimes, end up taking them, as it were, far and away from classes, and by extension, from the school premise as if this country does not have the capacity to cater for their demands at all cost. On the other hand, sadly, even the uniforms that these school kids wear to school have gradually become no less rags, so tattered in such manner as that which is apt for the wiping of the surpluses of foods around the mouths after finishing their bowls.
Teachers are no exception in the chain of suffering. They “sacrifice” their entire lives on the altar of building powerful intellectuals and strong-base human resources only to be dictated to by the creatures of their own work in a form of payment of poor wages, over-taxation and unproductive dissipation of their resources, and hence, these rampant and ceaseless strike actions on the part of teachers virtually at all levels of our education. Unfortunately, our fragile students continue to be at the receiving end of the privations and cruelty encountered by the teachers.
Who is to ensure that these young people, most of whom, rankled by the daunting nature of life, get the necessary opportunity to be inculcated with a sense of prosperity attainable through knowledge? Whose duties are they, to provide for the needy school children, the necessary facilities to alleviate the privations they encounter in education? The onus lies on whom to ensure that students do not encounter these same problems over and over again?
Regrettably, NUGS continues to recede in its voice and thus, gradually getting quieter as though the challenges confronting the education sector have been brought under control or minimum levels. NUGS must reposition itself in order to make the clarion calls on the authorities of the land to devise or contrive ways to
(1) whip up enthusiasm in the hundreds of thousands of young people of school-going ages skiving at school so as to enable them find their ways back into school, and
(2) further their efforts by improving the standards of education at all levels.
No student, not even one, deserves to go on empty stomach to school, study under deplorable and life-threatening facilities, learn without basic social amenities and above all, wear frayed uniforms to school, in the “exercise and enjoyment” of his or her fundamental human right as education, and so, students must be provided with all the “opportunities and facilities” necessary to ensure that they get the best out of their lives in terms of exploiting their potentials.
Finally, NUGS must partner in negotiations and deliberations with those under whose tutelage the young ones flourish, so that we may be able to escape these tortuous labour agitations or better still, strike actions. Students deserve better, likewise teachers.
God bless Africa, Ghana, NUGS and all students!
Thank you!
Amadu Baba Suleman
Deputy Director (ILC)
miamithegreat8@gmail.com/024-817-1059/050-929-7716
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