The Dean of the College of Ghana Enterprise Faculty (UGBS), Professor Justice Bawole, has slammed social media content material creators who goal and mock Junior Excessive Faculty (JHS) dropouts for viral fame.
In an emotional speech, Professor Bawole described the pattern of recording college students struggling to precise themselves in English after the Fundamental Schooling Certificates Examination (BECE) as “nonsense” and “extraordinarily egregious”.
He warned that such digital use may completely shatter younger folks’s confidence and destroy their educational futures.
Professor Bawole’s response was prompted by a viral video that confirmed two younger folks mocking their incapacity to talk English fluently and being interviewed in English by a content material creator.
The dean, himself a educated trainer, argued that college students’ incapacity to talk English at secondary college degree was not a mirrored image of their intelligence, however somewhat a symptom of a deeply unequal schooling system.
“Our system has created such a degree of inequality that the place you’re, via no fault of yours, determines whether or not you may converse English or not,” Professor Bawole mentioned.
He additional identified that youngsters who attend privileged faculties in city areas typically converse higher English, not as a result of they’re inherently higher at English, however due to sources which might be typically not obtainable in rural areas.
“Actually, in (some) circumstances, the privilege of with the ability to ship your youngsters to the most effective faculties is a stolen privilege…cash that might be used to make the system higher for everybody,” he added.
Yeji’s private journey
Primarily based on his personal tough upbringing in a village 18 kilometers away from Yeji, Professor Bawole informed the story of how he was requested to behave as an interpreter for an American couple when he was an elementary college pupil. Regardless of being one of many few college students at college, he was topic to extreme ridicule within the village as a result of he couldn’t perceive a single phrase of English on the time.
“This meant the tip of my schooling. It required my father’s constant insistence…that he would ship me again to highschool,” he recalled.
He used his private success, rising from a poor village pupil to dean of a prestigious enterprise college, as proof that early language boundaries don’t decide an individual’s final potential.
Name for authorized and legislative intervention
The dean expressed outrage at media retailers and people recording youngsters beneath the age of 18 with out their mother and father’ consent, making them “a laughing inventory”. He particularly referred to as on the Minister of Communications, Digital Know-how and Innovation to champion a authorized crackdown on these exploiting weak minors for social media likes.
“If there’s a regulation in Ghana in opposition to mocking folks…that regulation ought to apply to the one that recorded this video and the one that printed this video on-line,” he argued.
He additionally referred to as on consultants from the Division of Psychosocial Providers to trace down the younger folks featured within the viral video to offer emergency counseling to scale back the danger of self-harm and trauma.
Professionalism within the media
Professor Bawole concluded by urging content material creators to take away such movies instantly and calling for a return to the dialogue on the usage of native languages in instruction to raised assist rural college students.
He argued that the media should show the next degree of professionalism and keep away from exposing youngsters affected by “examination trauma” to nationwide ridicule.
