“Weakening sense” of citizenship fueling corruption

Mr Alex Mawusi Buadi, the Volta Regional Director of Education, has said the ills befalling the nation, such as corruption and laziness, are the result of the “weakening sense” of citizenship.

“The Ghanaian today is hyper conscious of his or her rights but painfully dead to their responsibilities to the State,” he noted.

Mr Buadi was opening the fifth Volta Region “Project Citizen Ghana” contest for Senior High Schools in Ho.

Project Citizen Ghana, is an interdisciplinary project by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) with support from Hanns Seidel Foundation, and the European Union. It is aimed at helping students learn community involvement, teamwork, and to become result-oriented.

Mr Buadi said one’s identity, born out of citizenship, was expected to be a strong driver of values such as hard work, honesty, sacrifice, perseverance, among others, but that was not the case in Ghana today.

He, therefore, called for deliberate actions and strategies through projects and programmes to correct the “decaying sense of citizenship”.

“The Ghanaian of today must step into the higher ground of morality driven by an impeccable value system that is anchored on a deep sense of national interest,” Mr Buadi stated.

He said hope was, however, not lost, saying, the Project Citizen Ghana was re-orienting the youth on the “sense of citizenship”.

Ms Josephine Nkrumah, the Deputy Chairman, Finance and Administration, National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE), in a speech read on her behalf, said the Project, a flagship programme of the NCCE by which it reached young people, was having positive impact on the youth.

However, she noted that despite the successes, parents and teachers seldom nurtured the “seed” of civic rights and responsibilities planted in the children by the Commission.

Ms Nkrumah, therefore, urged them to help sustain the interest of children in the Project to empower them to fully participate and drive policy formulation and democratic governance.

Meanwhile, the Keta Senior High School has emerged the 2015 Regional Champions, and it would represent Volta in the national contest.