This article is written in response to the unprofessional posture of Ghana’s educational authorities and refusal of Ama ‘Atta’ Aidoo (the renowned Ghanaian poet) to accept an award. In this write-up, I attempt to justify how the unprofessional posture of Ghana’s educational authorities directly resulted in the authorities mis-educating our students right from preschool to the university level.

One direct evidence of the mis-education is the increasing surge of reckless misspellings as seen in the Independent Day’s address (March 2016), teaching syllabuses, textbooks, BECE and WASSCE examinations papers and marking schemes, national signboards and on state vehicles.

The celebrated playwright reportedly refused the award on the said day because of the ‘genuine’ misspelling of her name as ‘Atta’ instead of Ata. Her refusal of the award was caused by her lost of touch with Ghana’s current educational system, which is error-based.

We begin from the photo above. Just look at the arrow in the photo provided. In case the photo is not published, the arrow points to this phrase: AVOID TEENAGE ‘PREGNANCE’. The phrase is part of the logo of a project named CAPECS/PLAN GHANA GIRL POWER PROJECT (GPP).
First, you will wonder where the writer got the photo from. The photo is boldly displayed at the front gable wall of Ga E/A Primary School in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region. The wall is 70 to 80 metres away from the Wa–Kumasi Highway.

Second, what is wrong with the photo? The ‘genuine’ misspelling of pregnancy as ‘PREGNANCE’. Ask how the misspelling escaped the donor agency—CAPECS/PLAN GHANA. More importantly, ask how the head teacher, class teacher, all other school teachers, the visiting circuit supervisors, and all other visiting educational authorities never noticed the incorrect spelling, which has been on display for several terms or years.

The answer to the above surprises is unprofessional conduct by MoE/GES. Obviously, serious educational authorities are concerned about the educational value of every readable material. Accordingly, these serious educators always demand a copy of the material, read it first, approve it and then authorize its display.
Therefore, we ask ourselves this question—if a student writes ‘pregnance’ in place of pregnancy in a dictation test in the said school, does the teacher has the professional right to mark the student’s answer wrong? We will return to the answer later in the discussion.

How do we attribute this incorrect spelling to MoE/GES? The authorities are ‘ignorant’ of correct spellings or they are tolerant of incorrect spellings especially those made by their staff members ranging from curriculum developers to authors of textbooks to WAEC (as seen in BECE and WASSCE papers).

Our evidence is as follows. I visited CRDD, where I met its Director, Mrs Felicia Boakye-Yiadom, on 4th July this year to express my uttermost regret and disgust at the errors in the integrated science teaching syllabuses (for both JHS and SHS) and textbooks (both govt approved and privately published). She keenly listened and equally expressed regret (though somehow insincere) for the errors in privately published textbooks. She even suggested punitive measures to be taken against the authors including banning the said books.
Conversely, I tried proving to her that the errors in the textbooks were a replica of those in the syllabuses and WAEC examination papers. I opened to Page 11 and 12 of the teaching syllabus for SHS (2010). Before I could read some incorrect information, the Director demonstrated her tolerance of the errors by saying this: ‘ALIGNMENT ERROR’. That is, these authorities have already prepared defences or justification for any error in the syllabuses or Govt-approved textbooks. Perhaps, ‘Atta’ could go to MoE/GES for the interpretation of or justification for the wrong spelling of her name.
This is part of the information on the said page of the syllabus. Page 11 has a specific objective (3.2.7) which reads ‘describe vegetative reproduction in plants’. One of the teaching and learning activities under the said objective reads ‘Write word equations for aerobic and anaerobic respirations’.
Obviously, the teaching and learning activity belongs to Unit 5 named Respiratory system but was misplaced under Unit 4 named Reproduction and growth in plants. That is, the error is not caused by alignment but it is caused by failure to edit the syllabus. While she was still defending the error, I showed her the spelling of the unit title in the syllabus, which is RESPARATORY. Her strong defence was weakened and she then resorted to the unprofessional mantra—haven’t you ever made a mistake?
I responded professionally. Assuming we (teachers, authors, examiners at WAEC and designers of the curriculum) all agree that we make mistakes and therefore pardon ourselves for the errors, does it mean that a student who re-produces our mistakes in examinations will be marked correctly? Here, her responses slowed down; that is, she could no longer link policy implementation with the reality in Ghana’s educational system.
We return to the story of ‘Atta’. What went wrong with the spelling? Absolutely nothing unusual. The usual way of coining words in English and most other languages is doubling of the letters. That is, a double letter usually differentiates many words (eg, super & supper, later & latter and mating & matting). Therefore, inability to recognize and use the double letter is a spelling blunder.
Since when did Ghanaian writers (curriculum developers, authors, teachers and examiners) lose their sense noting the difference between single and double letters in words? Several years ago probably beginning from the time ‘Amma’ ‘Atta’ completed school and her teachers retired. See several pieces of evidence below.
EVIDENCE 1. A former player of Ghana Black Stars is Osei Kuffour (containing double letter). Accordingly, most Ghanaian writers incorrectly write Agyekum Kuffour instead of Kufuor (?). Even the main highway from Kwame Nkrumah Circle to Achimota named after the former president bears Kuffour. Yet a recent article on Ghanaweb(@ 17/09/2016 )—It’s wrong for Mahama to wear military uniform—by one US-based lawyer Prof. Kweku Asare contains this statement: ‘I cannot recall President Kuffour or Mills ever wearing military uniforms.’ Thus, something is certainly wrong with our writers.
Evidence 2. Another former president is Hilla Limann. Several millions of Ghana cedis in taxpayers’ money was used to brand the Metro buses, yet the authorities expectedly failed to notice that Limann has double ‘n’. That is, ‘Liman’ requires doubling of the last consonant while Atta requires singling of the only consonant. What was then so new about the nationally approved misspelling patterns in which case Ata must ‘genuinely’ be rewritten as ‘Atta’?
Evidence 3. A hall at the University of Ghana (UG) is named after Limann. Even this semester (Aug/Sept. 2016), students’ registration forms still contain the incorrect spelling ‘Liman’. That is, authorities of UG once again messed up with the spelling of another important personality that they honoured.
They (who?) say ‘If you go to Rome, do what Romans do’. Accordingly, ‘Atta’ overreacted because one probable trademark of UG is to misspell words. And I am so happy that the incorrect spellings from ‘big’ academicians are gradually been exposed because MoE/GES erroneously believe that only PhD holders and professors can correct errors.
We will return the argument to schools (JHS and SHS). The misspellings deployed wholesale by MoE into the educational system are highly diversified. However, we will continue with misspellings centred on doubling or singling of letters using integrated science syllabus, textbooks and WAEC past questions. See sentences below; note the letters in CAPS and the sources of the info.
1. Other units of mass are Milligram, Gram and TON.
[Teaching syllabus for JHS, 2012, p. 3]
2. Larger masses are measured in multiples of kilogram and TON.
[New Int. Sci. for JHS Bk 1 by Sedco, p. 21]
3. Any organic manure is applied at 30–40 metric TONES per hectare.
[Aki-Ola Int. Sci. for JHS, 2014, p. 131 and SHS, p. 616]
What did you notice from the above extracts? Several errors. First, the capital letters at the beginning of ‘Milligram’ and ‘Gram’ and ‘Ton’ renders the unit names wrongly spelt (NIST, 2004). Second and more dangerous, the correct unit is tonne as in the SI system or metric ton as in the US.
The use of ton in place of tonne is not a mere spelling error but rather it is huge technical blunder. Ton is an imperial unit meaning 1016 kg (long ton = 2240 pounds) or 907 kg (short ton = 2000 pounds). The SI accepted multiple for 1000 kg is tonne. Notice that the error is introduced by CRDD at MoE/GES and is replicated in nearly all textbooks.
Regrettably though expected, New Integrated Science Book by Sedco is the Govt-approved book for JHS that was withdrawn for errors. Ironically, this technical error and many others in the book were never mentioned in the petition submitted to MoE.
That is, both the petitioner and the Ministry are ignorant of such embarrassing technical errors. In contrast, only trivial issues were mentioned. Therefore, our students are just being misinformed and recklessly failed by WAEC (see sentences below). And the reality is that every integrated science textbooks contains errors on measurement (the most basic and most central topic in all the sciences). The same errors will be in the books currently being procured for the 2016/17 academic year!
4. The botanical name of cassava is Mannihot sp.
[GBCE marking scheme, 2014 for Question 3a]
5. The botanical name of cassava is Mannihot spp.
[Aki-Ola for SHS, p. 632]
6. The botanical name of cassava is Mannihot Spp.
[Approacher’s, p. 614)
The correct spelling is Manihot sp. or Manihot spp. It has one ‘n’ just as ‘Atta’s name has one ‘t’. Both or all three letters in the second name are small letters; hence, the spelling given in Approacher’s series is also wrong. Where from the incorrect spelling in the WAEC marking scheme? WAEC copied it from that Aki-Ola textbook. Many experienced teachers and testwise students are aware that WAEC copies its questions and answers from that textbook.
What is the effect of that wrong spelling and many others? WAEC fails our students avoidably. Why? In both BECE and WASSCE, any question beginning with list, state, mention and identify requires correct spelling to score.
In that examination, students who wrote the correct answer—Manihot sp. or Manihot spp.—were marked wrong! Better still, those students who are testwise might know the correct answer but they provided the wrong spelling just to score. That is, such students are aware that WAEC’s answers are usually not the correct information they learn. Therefore, learning to take BECE or WASSCE or GBCE is different from learning for knowledge.
By now ‘Atta’ is reconsidering apologizing to those who honoured her. Why? Because the new spelling policy from MoE is that writers should only take note of the individual letters of the word and not how many letters are in the word. That is, those who misspelled Ata’s name exhibited the expected behavioural change in accordance with the new teaching strategies from MoE.
Here, MoE has no room to play its usual gimmick by saying that it didn’t approve the textbooks. Both Aki-Ola and Approacher’s Series are listed as reference textbooks at Page 53 of the 2010 syllabus. Go to MoE as I did to tell them that WAEC uses voodoo answers to fail our students and they (the Chief Director of MoE and the Director of CRDD) will tell you that WAEC as international examination body with its half-informed examiners cannot be scrutinized.

Borrowing the terminology of Slisko and Hadzibegovic (2011), we conclude as follows. Pessimistic educators are those currently administering Ghana’s Education (MoE/GES/CRDD and/or WAEC). These authorities are partisans of the view that ‘to err is human’. If you are a partisan of this view, you are an academic misfit and cannot justifiably mark a student wrong when s/he defines mass as how a long an object is. The reason is that the student erred because s/he is human, among whom erring is the norm.

In Part II, we focus strictly on only the incorrect spellings in WASSCE May/June 2016. There you will see how WAEC contributes directly to students’ failure using the limited knowledge of its examiners.
Long live practising teachers, long live Ghana!

Idris Pacas
020-9101533 & iddrisuabdulai12@yahoo.com