Friday, May 1, 2009

If you educate a girl. . . you educate a nation, Part I


Last year while in Ghana I attended some of the Founders' Day activities of Achimota, the boarding school I attended for 7 years (1960-1967) as a secondary student. It is a time set aside every year to reflect on and appreciate the school's founders and alumni. I was moved by one speaker's message who remarked how the founders could not imagine that over 80 years after Achimota's beginning it would make so many impressive contributions to the nation's development. The school's motto is Latin for "that all may be one," and its crest is black and white piano keys, representing how all must work together to create something harmonious.

The implied message that day was that there is value in building for the future. I liked that. One important area of the school's leadership was the introduction of coed boarding schools. Taking the logo seriously, the school applied this truth to many areas of life, including race and ethnicity, rural and urban, but especially gender. Coed secondary schools were unknown in the 1920s, and the idea was quite controversial. One of the founders, Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey, is credited with going around the country allaying the fears of parents with this mantra: "If you educate a man you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family." These words eventually became the famous quote: "If you educate a boy, you educate an individual, but if you educate a girl, you educate a nation." Many important female leaders were trained at Achimota. A small sample includes Joyce Aryee (CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines), Dr. Esther Afua Ocloo (a pioneering woman industrialist), Dr. Susan Ofori-Atta (the first Ghanaian woman physician), and Judge Prof. Akua Kuenyehia (Judge, International Criminal Court, The Hague) and Dr. Letitia Obeng (Ghana's first woman scientist in zoology).

Originally girls made up 10% of the student body, but today the numbers of boys and girls are essentially equal. The current (Mrs. Beatrice T. Adom) and two previous (Mrs. Adelaide Kwami and Mrs. Charlotte Brew-Graves) principals of the school are all women. Also, the current President of the Old Achimotan Association (OAA) is a woman, "Akora" Sarah Nuno Mansaray to the left in the photo on the right, with another alumna who is a physician.

I must reflect sadly that despite this insightful vision of equality, the University of Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, both of which had their roots in Achimota, have yet to produce a female Vice-Chancellor (President).

I am intensely aware of the urgent need to reassert the importance of women in science and engineering education and to seriously encourage women to enter these fields. My next blog will present a few of the women who are role models for the future.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

hey Akora Ossea-Asare, I am Florence Gelli, I was gld to met you when you came to Tarkwa (hotel de hilda- a receptionist). I have been inspide by your blog and also when I saw your wife in the school's cloth.

Kwadwo Osseo-Asare said...

Thanks for visiting my blog. Tell your friends about it. Stay in touch.

Unknown said...

Good sir,
you solve my problem
cause I want essay on it

Unknown said...

Thank you very much for this blog. i wanted some points for my presentation and this has been very helpfull.nts for my presentation and this has been very helpfull. -NAA

A K Jalla said...

Great,
Mrs. Jaya Mattoo sent me approximately $6,000/= to be kept as corps in our "Kalpa Vraksha Trust" New Delhi, and out of this money she specifically wrote we should give assistance to a poor talented Kashmiri Girl for continuation of her study in the name of "Jaya and Omkar Nath Mattoo Education Assistance"
Your site helped me with the importance of educating a girl and I will use these words to thank her on behalf of our trust.

I thank you on behalf of our president Prof B. B. Dhar and other members.
Regards,

A K Jalla, Secretary, Kalpavraksha Trust, D 6, Pamposh Enclave, New Delhi - 110048, India.

Unknown said...

Reading from your blog has given me an intense enthusiasm to carry on with the goal. You are a gem. Thanks.

alok raletta said...

Yeah thats true if you educate a women the you are educating a society or the nation.
Nice blog, thhank you for sharing this blog .
women empowerment

palpal joshi said...

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palpal joshi said...

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Unknown said...

Professor Osseo Assare. Your blog title is perfect and so true. I see you were at Achimota from 1960. That is the year we left to return to England. My parents started teaching at Achimota in 1947 and were committed to education as a way to improve Civil Society. It is lovely to see your career.

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