The Anlo Youth Council (AYC) has expressed fears its tried and tested dictum: “Ka xoxoawo nue wogbea yeyeawo do” to wit, onto old ropes that new ones are woven, “is under threat.”
The dictum derived from the migratory journeys of Ewes, which underscores the principle of continuity from the base necessary for any survival, the Council believed was losing true value among Anlo schoolchildren thus, the consistent poor performance in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The records of 2020 BECE results show that none of the about 1,600 candidates the Anloga District presented had aggregate “6”. A percentage of that had aggregate “7-15”, six per cent had “16-24”, 13 per cent had “25-30”, 27 per cent had from “31-36” and majority, 53 per cent had aggregate “37” and above.
Anlo was once reputed as an education economy with prominent citizens including Prof Kofi Anyidoho, Royal Society of Edinburgh Corresponding Fellow, poet and pioneer scholar of African Humanities at University of Ghana (UG), the late Professor Kofi Awoonor, the foremost contemporary poet-scholar and interpreter of the Anlo-Ewe tradition in the arts, Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, the renowned lawyer and Prof Audrey Gadzekpo of University of Ghana among many others.
Mr Kenneth Kpedor, AYC Vice President-Operations in a speech at the opening ceremony of Davordzi Examination Clinic 2021 at Anloga, organised by the Council in conjunction with Ghana Education Service, bemoaned the 2020 BECE results saying “this nation was not founded only on the love of freedom but the inherent power and capacity of all human beings”.
“These values have been handed over from generation to generation. Anlo became a human resource economy with our schools becoming our factories. Today, our tried and tested dictum, ‘ka xoxoawo nue wogbea yeyeawo do’ is under threat.
“The 2020 result is a collapse of education in Anlo. The Engineers, doctors, Scientists, Professors etc in our young ones are being killed. And this has become a threat to our very existence in this generation.”
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Mr Kpedor called for an end to the blame game among adult players (administrators, parents, teachers) with an appeal to teachers and head teachers to prepare the pupils well for their upcoming examination, while charging the candidates to make judicious use of the time left encouraging, “you can’t fail if you focus the rest of the three months on learning and preparing for the exams”.
The four-day programme themed, “Hard Training Easy Battle” had motivational speakers and examiners reach out to BECE candidates in the various circuits across Anloga District to groom them in order to arrest the nosedive in BECE results.
Representatives of the local assembly and the education office said the trend was worrying and charged candidates to be determined for success, while collaborative efforts were made to improve the performances.
Mr Richard Kwame Sefe, Member of Parliament for the area who expressed readiness to support education in his Constituency, promised candidates who would get aggregate “6”, one year sponsorship and a sum of GH¢2,000.00 each, while those with aggregate “7-10”, one year sponsorship and a sum of GH¢500.00 each.
Gifty Axovi, a candidate from Anloga E.P. Basic School, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) described recent BECE performances as abysmal saying, “I have some difficulties with some subjects so I’m hoping to get “9-10” and if I don’t do well at all, “15” but anything above that, I’ll go back and rewrite.”
Miss Nancy Makafui Davordzi, the diasporan who sponsored the programme, told the GNA that her mission was to support her people in any way she could and expressed the hope that others could join for sustainability.
“Even though I didn’t grow up in the Volta Region, I’m aware of the struggles in my native community. Growing up, I remember my dad doing his part by giving back in his own small way.
Education is something my dad didn’t play with. He would visit the village and help random kids with their school needs. So the older I got, the more I understood that we rise by uplifting each other.
“My mission is to help elevate my people as much as I can. I hope that I can motivate others to join and together we can move mountains”.
