Breaking Barriers: Gender and Learning in My Country

In todays world, education has grown to become a very important aspect of life. Gone were the days when our forefathers didn’t get the chance to go to school and even if they did, some of them refused to go because they’d rather find a job and make money than spend years in school while their mates were out there making money.

Today, the narrative has changed, thanks to the change in the mindset of the people. I’d like to believe that as time went on, people grew to appreciate the importance of education and were able to see the differences between literates and illiterates around them. I was born into a family where most people were literates. With my extended family, the choice was up to the individual to either go to school or not and with whatever decision you make, you were going to be supported.

My grandparents supported their kids in what they did and that’s how come I had a family with more literates. Right from the word go, my parents wanted time to have the best of education. I started school even before I could know my own name. I guess the whole plan was to give me a strong foundation and it did work. I really didn’t do much in school then aside watch cartoons, sing , dance, cry, eat and sleep. But at least I knew my way around so many things just by being in the schooling environment.

I didn’t have any issues with school and same with all of my siblings. But I wouldn’t say this is the situation of most people here in Ghana. Thanks to free education which was implemented a few years ago, students are able to go to senior high school for free. During my time, we had to pay fees in high school and most parents couldn’t afford that, meaning their kudos had to drop out of school. Now, I can say almost 99% of students leaving junior high school are able to complete senior high school if they want to because it’s literally free.

However, going to the university is obviously not free and that where the difference comes. Although most people are able to go to the university, not everyone is lucky to have support. Some people’s journey end after senior high school and some end their journey after university. Those who have the means even go further to have their masters and PHD’s if they want to. The gender dynamics is also very balanced now as we tend to even have more females in school than males given the population dynamics. To me, this is great improvement and I’m really happy that our girl children are able to go to school and learn without any restrictions.

With all these statistics, I would say the educational system in my country Ghana has improved and also been messed up. Improved in the sense that so many people have access to education for free and messed up in the sense that the student to teacher ratio in most public schools especially is nothing to write home about.

Free education means that education for all, but that also means that the government need to recruit more teachers and provide more learning spaces because now, everyone is going to be in school. But hey, I guess this is just a start. Hopefully, things would get much better than they are. But overall, I believe the educational system in Ghana is not that bad when compared to other countries.

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all images belong to me.

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