NDC School: We'll poison ourselves if history is twisted - Kwesi Pratt

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been advised to critically ‘look’ at subjects that will be taught at its new school.

Kwesi Pratt Jnr, Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper says if this is not done, ‘we will poison ourselves’ in terms of learning the right thing and that will lead to the ‘twisting of history’.

The NDC has established a school called the Ghana Institute for Social Democracy.

The Institute is aimed at ensuring that members are grounded in the ideals of the party.

According to the Director of Research of the party who also doubles as the Acting Rector of the Institute, Dr William Ahadzie, “we are not looking at NDC people only but people who share our ideals from other countries in the sub-region”.

Programmes that the institute would run include the philosophy of the party, history of the party, history of Ghana, constitutional studies, party management, political communication, leadership skills, elections and electoral systems.

It is located at the party’s headquarters ‘for now’.

Speaking to this during a panel discussion on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji, Kwesi Pratt said: “…it’s not a bad enterprise but …there are those in the National Democratic Congress who claim falsely that social democracy is a variant of socialism; it is not."

He added, "Social democracy has always been a variant of capitalism and since the school was announced, I have seen publication that gives me cause for concern…I think what is taught in that institution needs to be looked at very carefully otherwise we will poison ourselves. For example I saw one publication which said what social democracy seeks to achieve is the same as what Marxist seeks to achieve; through a revolutionary process and so on; I think that is a complete distortion…but nonetheless I think it is a good beginning…”