Dear President Mahama,

EDUCATIONAL ELITISM – THE UNPARDONABLE HERITAGE

Warm greetings to you from the land of Your Majesty, the Great King of Ashanti land ‘Otumfuo’ Nana Osei Tutu II.
Sir, Education throughout history is a proven key to accelerated development of a nation; contrary, tertiary level education in Ghana especially at the Universities have become an avenue to promote elitist agenda whilst the poor is left to perpetually suffer the fate of illiteracy, a prelude to poverty.
Sir, the mundane annual surge in fees especially at the tertiary level of education has assumed a threatening stage with the potency to conclusively deny the 'average citizen' a chance of escape from illiteracy and poverty. Mr. President, increment in fees according to snippets of information, is largely triggered by the rate of fall in value of the Ghanaian Cedi against the other major trading currencies; ipso facto, fees rise cautiously in tandem with the 'rate' lest the institutions in scope become crippled in Management.
Mr. President, Economic Management of the country is your sectored mandate and i pray that you strengthen the positioned economic mechanisms to salvage the rate of fall of the Ghanaian Cedi against the other trading currencies, lest education and students suffer the rippling effects of economic trepidation.
Again, Sir, whiles appreciating the efforts of the Students’ Loan Trust Fund Secretariat (SLTF) over the years in providing students with loans, release of the loan is done very late in each semester, thereby rendering the significance of such monies irrelevant. Precisely Sir, the loans are released at a time in the semester when beneficiary students have been exhausted of the perils of economic endurance.
Mr. President, trusting your ability to intervene, I pray that you urge the Finance Ministry to promptly release purposed funds to the Students’ Loan Trust Fund Secretariat so as to exhaust the Secretariat possible excuses for the late disbursement of the loans.
Furthermore Mr. President, Education becomes meaningful when the educated positively contributes to Society through available ventures. Mutatis Mutandis, the unavailability of neither JOBS nor SOFT LOANS to young entrepreneurial inspired persons have crippled the desire of the Student to meaningfully contribute towards national development. This year many students have graduated and soon we shall follow suit without a definitive or predictable future.
Appreciating government(s) for the establishment and sustenance of the National Youth Employment Programme to mitigate the perils of unemployment, I hope that more is done to open up the economy towards a boom in job creation and job opportunity. Moreover, I hope that you empower the National Youth Authority to fall back unto providing start up loans to young entrepreneurial inspired persons. That way, interested persons could start a business and live decent lives.
In conclusion, Mr. President, just as you constantly reiterate Prof. Mills’ commitment to a peaceful 2012 elections, we pray that you live out that pledge by doing everything humanly possible towards the realization of peace even as the citizenry comply with the dictate of civility. I wish you well in the contest as President of the Republic of Ghana.
Counting on your Fatherly LOVE,

GOD BLESS KNUST and GOD BLESS GHANA.

Paul Obeng Atiemo
Student, KNUST
FACEBOOK/paulaoben@yahoo.com