Shrouded attributes, myopia, and information suppression in the education system

By just about any measure education reforms in Ghana have largely been dependent on foreign donor support.

While donor funding provides necessary school resources, conditions for such funding ignore the cultural and economic preferences of Ghana's citizens. The old cliche “You get what you pay for” doesn’t always apply, but it usually does. The things we value typically come at a price.

Whether we realize it or not, this well-orchestrated strategy is how the West builds hegemony. To unfold ─ the word "gender" is central in this discourse, and the over-emphasis on the same in many different arenas at the same time, including the economy, education, and beyond, facilitates achieving this goal.

It must be a concern for education stakeholders, especially parents. We are under a distorted construction of the term gender that’s defined in ways that confirm the meanings and values of Western societies. In other words, the very meaning of vital notions that should pave the way for a really just and equal society is perverted, questioning the very construction of the public common good.

A basic internet search on the modus operandi of some of these donor organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mastercard et cetera validates the assertions of cultural perversion and hegemony.

A more apt question to ask at this point considering this is not in tune with our cultural and moral Zeitgeist “Doesn’t the ear test words as the palate tastes food?” Job 12:11 (HCSB). Our obligation is to devote attention not merely to the sophistication of the processes that drive these devastating values but to the educational and social side effects.

We are before belligerent forces that are overdetermined to subtly and insidiously invade our workplaces, our schools, and our assumptions about human nature and education.

Straightforwardly, the cause of this deleterious effects ─ political expediency coupled with a weak economy and declining social spending due to strict adherence to the prescribed structural adjustment policies of the IMF and the WB. This more often than not causes government to subjugate national domestic priorities to a mirage of international credibility and competitiveness.

We need to decide whether we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. We can have an honest government at a price we can afford. Until we do, our problems will remain unsolved.

In the meantime, rather than allowing the term to morph, our approach should be to denounce the shifting meanings of the word gender. Without a doubt adopting a heuristic character [a character focused on solving problems] may be very useful in addressing issues of gender in our country. And you, yes you can as a matter of urgency eschew complacency and unquestioned acceptance of gender in its shifting forms.

We have the right of indignation and we need to challenge the way reforms in the education sector are participating in the edification of dangerous and perverse cultural practices from Western societies since it is right here that cultural battles are fought.

I hope that this article serves to, at least momentarily, disrupt the agenda to corrupt our cultural and moral fabric as a country.