History cannot be overlooked in nation-building – Prof De-Valera Botchway

Head of the Department of History at the University of Cape Coast, Professor De-Valera Botchway has stressed the need for Ghana to learn from its past as the country works towards nation-building.

He said knowing your past helps one to know the path they are on and are to take, going forward adding that lessons drawn from the past prevent one from repeating mistakes which he said can hinder the country from achieving a brighter future.

“People must draw inspiration and lessons from the past and all the mistakes their ancestors made and use these experiences and knowledge to gauge their acquisition, to serve as a compass for the movement within the present and into the future.” He intimated

Speaking exclusively to ATL FM NEWS, he added that when it comes to building a nation, the history of that nation cannot be overlooked.

To this end, Professor De-Valera Botchway indicated that for the effective building of a nation, the country must consider the past to know its identity and this will set it on a path to building a strong united front.

He explained that “if we want to create unity in Ghana, if we want to create a certain culture of cooperation amongst all the constituents, in any case, that come together or are trying to create this thing called Ghana, it is important for us to understand the past issues that revolve around interstate relations, into ethnic relations, why we have called ourselves maybe Ethnic A, B, or C, and yet we go a step further to call ourselves Ghanaians.”

To him, Ghana is important even in conversations about the country’s different ethnicities as such, conversations about history must start at the basic level.

Professor De-Valera Botchway recently joined in calls for Ghana to make History a compulsory subject from kindergarten to the university.

During the Global Ghana Conference dubbed “Global Ghana: In search of Africa’s Blackstar,” Professor Josephine Akosua Adomako Ampofo of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, suggested that History should be made a compulsory subject from kindergarten to the university.

According to her, there is no need to reinvent the wheels as the great grandparents of African descent may have invented them already and only requires the younger generations to go for such materials and improve upon them.

Stressing the importance of teaching History from the basic level, he said it will help set a good standard for the young ones to follow as they contribute their quota to the development of the country.

“If you’re able to teach the young ones and students the great things of the past and explain, then they will know that the ancestors did great things and they are descendants of the ancestors. So then it means I carry the DNA of my ancestors, right? It means I can do the things that my ancestors did.” He said.

To him, it is important academics also begin to philosophically interrogate the kind of decisions politicians make for the country’s educational curriculum.

He, therefore, emphasized that History must be studied as a standalone subject as it has its specialized area of Study with its methodology, concerns, and objectives.