This article was first published 10 years ago in The Finder

By Nana S. Achampong

Democracy is an attractive nuisance. In the light of animated wars of words on our airwaves, that notion of one man one voice produces more discord than Whitney Houston’s last concert (may her soul rest in some peace). Lately, the noise pollution seems to center on the value of free education to children of the Ghanaian working and poor classes. An unlimited number of ignoramuses are getting paid to engage in screaming bouts on programs steered by clueless hosts who know no better. It’s called democracy, but its players add more confusion to the debate than not.

Mind you, we’re talking about social engineering of our future stock here, not which over-bleached woman has the best kenkey around north of Kaneshie.

The official NDC position on the debate is to “expand access”, whatever that means. Ostensibly, it has something to do with encouraging the hopeless youth roaming our dark pot-holed streets to get some sort of education which would then transform their miserable lives and give them a taste of our much touted middle-income economy. CPP’s position hasn’t changed since Kwame Nkrumah turned this country into a welfare nation (Incidentally, every politician today – and the pundits alike – has benefited from this dispensation which has effectively cushioned Ghanaians from harsh economic realities and established a more or less horizontal playing field for citizens of every tribe, gender and faith. This is before the IMF-imposed structural adjustment, that is). But then, we all know the CPP will never get a chance to host foreign guests at the Castle. Not as it is organized this moment, anyway.

The free-market NPP presidential candidate wants free education for senior high-schoolers. Now, since when did state-initiated state-controlled social programs feature into the manifesto of an avowed free enterprise exponent? The PPP counterpart claims to seek all the above, BUT – he stresses – made mandatory BY LAW, as if that would make a difference. And many partisan pundits get invited on the electronic media to fight on air about the cost of this proposed free education, and the availability of school structures and needed amenities, and more such nonsense. The discussion is centered on how the estimated GHC 6B can be raised, and the time frame for the implementation of the program, and who “chopped” more money and more such rubbish.

Even for us, this is pathetic. We waste our time discussing money for such a program when it is documented that corruption costs us as a nation GHC 3B every year, waste covers another Gh.C3.5B, and inadequate revenue collection costs us another Gh.C2B. And of course, let’s not forget about our 85 percent graduate under-employment that could take care of faculty needs, and the jobs that the construction of new facilities would offer the unskilled. So let’s not waste time on the inconsequential: that is your free education right there.

The fact is, all that talk is useless, because it is predicated on a falsehood. The falsehood is that education in Ghana leads to jobs. Most of these pundits do what they do because they do not have jobs. And I bet you they have had some degree of higher education. Graduate unemployment (and underemployment) is so criminal that if this country were ran in the manner of a typical household, the “parents” would be jailed by common consensus for negligence and abuse of the highest kind. This is not a swipe at any particular government: it is an indictment of our failed system, a system that does not respond to the needs of the general public but is designed to raise wealth and establish status for a select few who constitute the political clique.

The issue at stake has nothing to do with the cost of education. After all, we have enough to salvage – with the political will – to undertake this venture. When education was free, most of our educated professionals ended up prostituting themselves abroad for peanuts. The real issue at stake is simple: what kind of education? The issue is about the content of education that is relevant and industry-related and ensures gainful employment at the point of successful completion. Who cares about free education when you still have to depend on the system after you attain your certificates? Normal people are rational and they are ready to borrow to pay for their own education if they can obtain jobs that pay well after their degree.

But alas, we are a democracy, and even the least of us has to be heard. I only wish those opinions were kept safe where they belong – in their vacant minds. .Democracy is an attractive nuisance indeed.

NOTE: This opinion first appeared in ‘The Finder’ on October 2, 2012