The parable of the two sons and the nihilism of free secondary education cynics
By Samwin J Banienuba
“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first” (Mathew 21:28 -31). With the one possible exception of the now trite ‘tweaa’, of which some of us agree with Speaker Adjaho it should not have a place in the lexicon of the august house of Parliament, nothing else in President Mahama’s recent state of the nation address prompted so much exclamation than the progressive free education policy he earmarked for the 2015/2016 academic year in Ghana. It was a thunderbolt announcement that very few had expected even as the President was doing his father’s (Ghana’s) will. He literally swept the opposition off their feet, jaws dropped as they listened in bewilderment and stared really hard to see if it was indeed Mahama or the ‘I go, sir’ second son of father Ghana. Not surprisingly, no sooner had the curtains drawn on the address than there was a barrage of echoes attempting to nail the President for stealing a pricey policy of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) and thus pulling the rug from under their feet. The reason for this somewhat melodramatic reception or quantum disbelief is that the NPP has succeeded in convincing themselves they have the copy right to anything ‘free education’ in the country. True, in the run up to the 2012 elections free secondary education was their trump card, the central plank of their entire campaign and arguably the unique selling point of Akufo-Addo, their presidential candidate. He had tapped into the very high premiums Ghanaians specifically attach to education, and spoke eloquently about it with a combination of passion and mission to win their confidence. But because there is no record of things that did not happen speculative historians will have a hard task convincing the world that had Akufo-Addo won the elections he would have done exactly as he promised let alone better than what we are witnessing under Mahama. What is not counterfactual history is that he lost the elections and he lost it despite, if not in spite of, the free secondary education policy he trumpeted. Everything else is now a matter of ‘what if’ and speculative interpretation. For instance, it is possible to argue that either Ghanaians did not trust him to deliver at all or that they were unconvinced it was realistic to launch the policy in the very next school year after the 2012 elections as he said he would. The only other possible interpretation is that Akufo-Addo might not have raked in that number of votes he garnered to come a close second to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, now President Mahama, but for the free secondary education policy he packaged.
Akufo-Addo did not promise free education in isolation of health. He made a pledge to provide all children free access to healthcare irrespective of whether parents had cover under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). But Ghanaians know where their priorities lie and Akufo-Addo woke up to that reality and very quickly too. When no one seemed to take particular notice of the largesse of the NPP candidate in health he zeroed in on making his message of free education mega, a kind of ideal the right wing ideologue was willing to stake his political fortunes to. It sounded a make or break ideal, and like his cross he carried it throughout the length and breadth of the country with alacrity during which he also generated lots of interest and debate in his trail. In fact, take out the free education bit from his campaign and things begin to fall apart, the centre hardly able to hold together. It therefore becomes easy to understand why followers of the free education apostle will feel emotive and done in with the President’s announcement.
Indeed, Akufo-Addo had managed to persuade himself that “the good people of this country know that this is something we should do, we can do, and we will do.” As to whether the triple 'we' meant we Ghanaians or we the NPP is a matter of opinion that only Akufo-Addo can clarify. What Akufo-Addo however may not have realised is that many Ghanaians, NPP and non-NPP alike, tuned into his free education campaign in consensus and still fail to see why some Ghanaians remain sceptical about its promise and feasibility. I believed then as l still want to do today that when Akufo-Addo said “this is something we should do, we can do, and we will do” he meant ‘we’ as Ghanaians, as a people, as a nation and as a country. Some politicians may have dragged their feet in the name of pragmatism but none has dissented on the wisdom of free secondary education. But in an election year as it was and coming from the lips of somebody who represents the conservative (property owning democracy) background of politics in the country it invariably smacked populist and some analysts and many detractors said so without a hiccup.
To hang Akufo-Addo’s policy mantra, the dog was named a hoax, fanciful and egalitarian, almost the same bad names now used to baptise President’s Mahama’s progressive free secondary education policy announcement, except this time the officiating voices have changed owners and disingenuously they have added ‘theft’. This fourth name, according to adversarial political frontliners, is well deserved because of an alleged political volte-face from what candidate Mahama stood for compared to what President Mahama is blaze-trailing. Yet, the defining difference between the policy espoused by the NPP and NDC in the heat of the electioneering was a very thin line that had everything to do with timing and nothing with the substantive issue of free secondary education per se. While Akufo-Addo vouched for a comprehensive implementation with immediate effect if elected, Mahama preferred to tread cautiously until basic education was made truly and completely free by 2016 after which the free secondary education policy would kick off.
For the records, the history of education in Ghana suggests free education is the direction we chartered for ourselves when we declared capability of managing our own affairs in 1957. How well we have done in these 57years is a subject of debate, but for Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory free secondary education has never been a question of if. And the 1992 4th Republican Constitution states very clearly that “Secondary education in its different forms, including technical and vocational education, shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means, and in particular, by the progressive introduction of free education.” As a policy therefore it is not the creative vision of any political party or individual but a constitutional requirement backed by historical determinism. What has always remained outstanding was the will power of government to bite the bullet and take the bulls by their horns.
The argument that Ghana does not have the wherewithal to meet the needs of free secondary education is as old as Methuselah without Solomon’s wisdom. A country that is considering $20million for participation in the 2014 World Cup when super developed countries would rather budget $2million only suggests sweet tonic instead of bitter pill priorities have been the undoing of investment in education and other more critical sectors of the economy. And whatever the sceptics would have us believe, the fact that Mahama is delivering free secondary education in office without first using it as a campaign ploy affirms this is not about the next election but so much about the next generation and others to come. Of course, time will tell, and when time tells history would judge accordingly. For now and until then, all that we are asking of President Mahama is to stay the course, give us this day our free education and forgive the cynics their nihilism.
The writer is freelance International Relations analyst and political commentator