Otabil is 101% right - Part 3

Education is a gateway to a prosperous future. To even those who are born with the proverbial silver spoon, you need education to enable you carry out successful negotiation with your environment. It is a no-brainer to tell anybody that education is important. Francis Bacon, arguably, the greatest British philosopher who rang the bell and call the wits together at the dawn of the renaissance, once wrote that knowledge is power. The bible teaches in Hosea 4:6 that, my people perish for lack of knowledge. Winston Churchill, in a prescient remark, said the empires of the future are the empires of the mind. My preamble makes education unquestionably double plus important, if I will be permitted to write George Orwell’s 1984 English. This is the reason why the empirical evidence is against the government getting anywhere close to education, because they suck at everything they do. And it is suicidal to wash our hands off something this important to any government irrespective of their political persuasion.

Before I proceed, this should be made crystal clear without any equivocation. A lot of private people do not even think about profit when they go into certain ventures. For example, most of the enduring world renowned American educational institutions were built by private philanthropists. The first medical school in the United States, Penn State University, 1765, developed out of the benevolence of a private man - Benjamin Franklin. The premier American medical school, John Hopkins university hospital, was founded using money from the donation of the philanthropist John Hopkins. It is good to know that while some want to make profit, others too out of benevolence for society will provide the same service for free or pittance.

In Britain, the pews of the Church of England are empty, however, that of the Catholic Church is doing pretty well, because every parent want to send their child to a Catholic school. And the surest way is to be a member of the Catholic Church. The reason is that the management of the Catholic schools are in the hands of the Catholic Church, and not in the clutches of government bureaucrats. The grammar schools in England do very well, because their students are based on selection. On the other hand, the Catholic schools are also comprehensives like the numerous failing comprehensive schools in England, yet their results are just like the grammar schools.

The introduction of comprehensive education in England was the nail in the coffin of British educational excellence. The idea was to make everyone equal, but equality is a red herring. There is no way we can all ever be equal, yet this baloney was sold to the British public and sadly they bought into it. To see the consequence of this I will recommend a book by Peter Hitchens ‘The Broken Compass’ and just read the chapter 11, ‘The Fall of the Meritocracy’. These progressives hate the fact that we are all not born equal. Some are born smarter, others with exceptional agility, which enables them to perform in sports – Michael Essien, Michael Jordan, Abedi Pele and many more. Some are born with self-discipline to cultivate their brains that leads to remarkable results. Yet, very smart people can’t get through their head and spout all sort of sophomoric argument. Their mentality can be crystallised in the language of a British Labour Party Secretary for Education, 1965 -1967, under Harold Wilson, when he spilled his guts, ‘If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland’. He couldn’t destroy that of Scotland if he had the chance, because, at the time, the Scottish grammar school came under the jurisdiction of Secretary of State for Scotland. Do I need to say more? Instead of trying hard to bring the other state schools to the level of the grammar school his desire was to destroy it. This is the classic thinking of the progressives, because I wrote a piece sometime ago which someone blew up with the suggesting that the labouring class in the bowl of the Titanic wouldn’t be too far from right to punch a hole in the hull of the Titanic so that they all go down. And, of course, when the Titanic went down, they did not all go down some survived. Which people had a better chance of survival? It was those in first class who survived in their numbers compared to those in the lower decks. The rich that they are so much against still take their children to private schools and have better chance of going to Oxbridge. However, the only means for the lower class to have social mobility was taken away, because they think we should all be equal. This is the tragedy of socialism; everybody end up poor, and this is their undeclared death wish.

When the comprehensive schools were introduced in the 1960s the Catholics resisted the taken over of their schools, but the Church of England caved in and the government destroyed their schools over the years with trendy educational reforms designed by some disinterested government bureaucrats. And this is England of all places, but just picture Ghana that lacks the resources to throw around like it is done here in England and imagine years down the line how our educational standards are going to be. I think I alluded to one of its results in my earlier submission.

It beggars the imagination that people think that the private sector cannot provide for the poor. In Britain, the premier airline is British Airways, but their fares are so high. So, not many people can travel with them. However, another private entrepreneur who has done his calculations realised that he could make a lot of profit while still charging very low fares within the price range of the poor. So in 1995 Easyjet was born, and it now carries more passengers than British Airways. It happens to be the biggest by passenger numbers behind Ryanair in Europe.

Therefore, in the same way that we think education will be too expensive for the poor to afford if it is in the hands of private entrepreneurs someone will figure out how to provide education for the poor and still make profit. Who are the people who started education in Ghana? All the great schools in Ghana, Mfantsipim, Adisadel, St Augustine, Achimota, Wesley Girls, Aggrey Memorial etc., were all established by private religious institutions or charity. The story of Mfantsipim is even riveting. It opened its doors in 1876 with an 18 year old first principal who wanted to do good. In 1905 a graduate of the school, John Mensah Sarbah, founded a rival institution and christened it Mfantsipim. However, in the same year the two schools were amalgamated under the auspices of the Methodist Church, while keeping the name Mfantsipim. So my argument is had the government not stepped in private men would have seen the need to establish more school to cater for the rising need of education in the country.

I will tail off with American government crime against black people when it comes to education. And that crime is being perpetrated by the Democratic Party that blacks vote for in the 80th and 90th percentile. During slavery, it was crime to teach a slave to read and write. One American black comedian made a joke about it that the equivalence of a black drug pusher now was a pusher of words. Nevertheless, after slavery the states in the south did not care about the welfare of the ex-slaves. It was philanthropist from the north who came to set up schools in the south for the benefit of the ex-slaves. The progress was remarkable. Now, examine what has happened after the government took over the complete running of pre-college schools in America – especially in a society where there is racism. Black children are being failed in American government controlled schools left, right and centre. They finish grade level and they cannot read and write adequately. After rendering them poorly educated for the job market, they slap them in the face with the minimum wage, which literally makes them unemployable. This crime can be solve with educational voucher, yet the teacher unions who are the paymasters of the Democratic party will never allow this to happen. So it is beyond comprehension that the black population still vote for the Democratic Party in their numbers, regardless of the evil being perpetrated against them under the eagle eyes of that party.

Philip Kobina Baidoo Jnr

London

baidoo_philip@yahoo.co.uk