Most people aren’t aware, but in Ghana, there’s something called free education, and it starts right from the basic schools. I remember when I was a kid, there were basic schools that weren’t paying anything, and they still exist. And for the other government schools that pay school fees, the fees aren’t that much.
I spoke about the basic schools, but then there’s also the secondary school free education scheme where no student pays anything from year one to year three. And this has helped so many people who wouldn’t have been able to afford education. I personally know a lot of people that have benefited from this free education scheme, and sometimes I imagine what they would have done without the help from the government.
Another thing most people don’t know is that the government pays part of the fees for university education. Yes, university education. Sometimes, these universities are just greedy, so they add certain utility fees and then overprice the fees, but normally, government universities are supposed to be very affordable because the government pays for a lot of things for the students.
With all that I’ve said, I believe that even if a country can’t support secondary schools and universities like how Ghana has been doing, it should make education for primary or basic schools free or affordable. Have you realized that humans are naturally complicated, but someone who has never been educated is more complicated? Yes, that’s the power of being educated.
I won’t say basic education is a right and that all countries must by force make it free for their citizens because not all countries can afford that. But then, even if a country can’t do that, they should make the basic school education very affordable for all to be able to pass through smoothly to the end. I’m saying that because some schools make it easy to start, and then at the end most people have no option other than to drop out because of the fees.
Even from the time that I was a kid till now, Ghana hasn’t been that rich, but it’s been able to do all these things for the educational system, which I think is very applaudable. Now I really think that if Ghana has been able to do this for so long, other countries can do the same thing.
If not for anything else, let’s not forget that no matter what we do, our future generation are the kids. And it’ll be much easier if almost all of them get access to good and quality education. It’ll be very sad to know in some years to come, people couldn’t grow to be the presidents or doctors they wanted to be just because they couldn’t afford education.
Images are mine
