Oil find: Ghanaians deserve to know what gov’t is doing
December 29, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
A Research Fellow at IMANI Ghana, Mr Bright Simons has expressed disappointment at the insidious way and manner in which the country’s oil resource is being managed.
He said the opaque clouds that have enveloped the processes relating to the management of the resource and the role government is playing should be of a major concern to all Ghanaians.
“The lack of transparency is unbelievable,” he told Joy FM’s Super Morning Show host Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah.
Social Networks and Kids: How young is too young?
November 3, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
A growing number of children are flouting minimum-age requirements on social-networking sites such as Facebook
Status updates, photo tagging and FarmVille aren’t just for adults or even teenagers anymore.
Researchers say a growing number of children are flouting age requirements on sites such as Facebook and MySpace, or using social-networking sites designed just for them.
Facebook and MySpace require users to be at least 13. But they have no practical way to verify ages, and many young users pretend to be older when signing up.
Some scientists worry that pre-adolescent use of the sites, which some therapists have linked to Internet addiction among adults, could be damaging to children’s relationships and brains.
But many other experts say there’s not any solid research to back that up and that most children seem to use social-media sites in moderation, and in positive ways.
“For the most part, although there’s so much press about all the bad things they’re doing, much of what they do on these sites is stuff they would be doing anyway,” said Kaveri Subrahmanyam, a professor of psychology at California State University-Los Angeles.
The Benefits Of Summer School To Students and Parents
November 3, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
June every year is graduation month for most students at the Elementary and High School levels. The following month often sees some students including elementary and high school graduates going back to school with other students. Such school is called SUMMER SCHOOL.
Before I come back to the topic of summer school, let me use this opportunity to congratulate all students, especially Ghanaian Canadian students who made us proud by successfully graduating from elementary, high schools, colleges and universities this year.
Summer school will begin for elementary students in Ontario Province of Canada on July 6, this year. It has already begun for college and university students in the province since May/June. Every year summer school is organized for students. Is it necessary for some students to go to school during the time that the school year has ended and schools are officially on holidays? What benefits does summer school offer students and parents? Is summer school the best option for students instead of holidays? I will try to address the above questions in this brief discourse on summer school.
Let me say what summer school isn’t to begin with. Summer school is not the place or time to “baby-sit” students. It is not fun time for students and teachers who participate in it. Neither is it “meet-me-there” opportunity for buddies!
What Summer School Is:
Summer school for elementary and secondary school students is organized each year as a remedial program. Many of the students who attend this program are recommended to it by their teachers with the support of their parents. Remedial Academic Summer School Programs: This program provides students in grades 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 with summer school assistance.
Ghanaians in Canada: A Special Report
October 15, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong in Ottawa
Daniel Tetteh Osabu-Kle(photo), 65, a former Ghana air force officer, is an associate political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
He worked as an airforce engineer, servicing airforce and presidential planes. Under Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings’ Provisional National Defence Council(PNDC), a hardline military junta, he had been a director of the Ghana Civil Aviation for two years and Greater Accra Regional Minister for two months. When he fell out with the military regime on matters of principle, he escaped from attempts on his life and came to Canada as a refugee in 1986.
“I came here penniless with only US$10 in my pocket. I was alone and had to struggle…My loneliness was informed by the fact that I found the Canadian society individualistic against my Ghanaian communalism. I didn’t know anybody here…I led a lonely life for some time before my wife and children joined me,” recalled Osabu-Kle. He took advantage of Canadian opportunities and went to Carleton University for a master’s degree in public policy and administration, and later read for a PhD in political science. After his completion of his PhD in 1994, he got work as tenure track professor at Carleton University.
Like Dr. Osabu-Kle’s story, Ghanaians’ immigration to Canada is a recent one unlike the Italians whose arrival dates back to 1665. Because Canada wasn’t a colonial power like Britain, Portugal, or France, it hasn’t had close relationship with Ghana though both did belong to the (British) Commonwealth of Nations.
However, according to Charity Agyei-Amoama, a former teacher at Dufferin Peel Separate School Board in Toronto and who came to Canada 30 years ago, “a small number of Ghanaian students in the 1960s came to Canada.” Ghanaians have been part of Africans who comprised 3 percent of new Canadian immigrants from 1946 to 1950. Over the next 20 years that figure rose to an average of 1 to 2 percent.
A 1966 Canadian government White Paper on Immigration opened the door for an impartial screening process for African immigrants. This process saw a reasonable percentage of African immigrants rising to an average of 2 percent from 1968 to 1970, an indication that the new system, despite being selective in relation to Africans, was a bit fair.
As with many African states, the 60s and 70s were a period of drastic economic and political changes that also signaled that “those who had taken power in Africa had failed to build viable political structures to replace the old colonial systems.”
Dilapidated Ghana Railway Company – Who do we blame ?
September 14, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
The virtual collapse of the Ghana Railway Corporation is indeed a sad indictment on the managerial capability of our institutions and the people in charge of them. The Railways Company though set up for the benefit of the colonisers in 1903 was left in reasonably good working condition. At its peak of performance in the late 50’s early 60’s it carried over 2 million tons of freight and 8 million Passengers in a year. Is the dilapidation of Ghana Railway Company, yet not another sad example of people who were supposed to be responsible for an institution causing financial loss to the state, but have not been held to account.
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Are Ghanaian Children Less Intelligent?
June 2, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
Mr. Kwame Alorvi, President of National Association of Graduate Teachers, has argued that the solution to improving the quality of education in Ghana does not lie in extending course durations.
He said there is no reason to subject Ghanaian school children to four years Senior High School when Liberia and Sierra Leone, among other members of the West African Examinations Council, are taking the same programme for three years.
“Ghana belongs to a sub-regional grouping, WAEC- Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia Liberia. If you look at the history of Liberia and Sierra Leone, for Liberia, for over 10 years Charles Taylor’s war devastated the educational structure of that country; Sierra Leone, the structure was destroyed, even children’s arms and legs were amputated by Foday Sankoh. In spite of that predicament, Liberia and Sierra Leone are doing the WASSCE in three years and you are telling our Ghanaian children that they cannot do it within three years.
Rastafarianism and Reggae Music in Ghana
May 17, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
Around the late 1960s and early 1970s, we began to see the infiltration of reggae music into the West African Region, particularly as a result of Bob Marley’s powerful presence in the music scene. Many young Africans began to view Marley with much awe; additionally, they began making linkages between reggae music and Rastafarian culture – Marley’s religion of choice.
The growth in adoration of reggae music, principally in anglophone West Africa may be directly linked to the fact that reggae had emerged from Jamaica, which is also an anglophone country. Along with reggae music came a change in fashion trends such as the adornment of Rasta’s prominent colours of red, gold, and green, the development of new social habits (i.e. smoking of cannabis), as well as the decision to wear dreadlocks: a largely abhorred hairstyle in Ghana and many other African countries.
Moreover, given that rastafarianism’s religious teachings are of Old Testament Judeo-Christian origin, makes adopting Rastafarianism an easier feat for young Africans, since the core principles of Christianity are also embedded in Rastafarianism. In fact, roughly 90% of all Rastafarians come from Christian homes. Today, in Labadi Beach, Accra we are able to find the headquarters of the Twelve Tribes – the largest group of Rastafarians in Ghana. The twelve Tribes of Israel was established by Prophet Gad of Jamaica, who travelled to Ghana in the 1980s to institute the organization.
The entire Rastafarian movement has many positive prospects, specifically in terms of the ways in which it propels Africans both in the continent and abroad – to cherish their ancestral homelands and to create unity in the face of neocolonialism. Big up Rastafarianism!
Article written by: Nicole Seck (Ghanalinx contributor)
Turning Waste into Wealth
March 13, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
Thursday, 12 March 2009
IN some parts of Europe and North America, waste is regarded as wealth because it is the raw material transformed for wealth creation.
In many parts of Africa, however, waste, particularly plastic waste, is a complete menace because of the tonnes and tonnes of the plastic waste that have engulfed our towns and cities, besides choking our drainage systems and littering our streets and beaches.
Washington Mission celebrates Ghana’s 52nd Independence anniversary – Period of reflection
March 7, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
March 6th 2009, marks 52years of Independence of the Republic of Ghana. As the first country south of the Sahara to gain Independence, Ghana is indeed the hub for Africa and has supported the integration process at the sub regional level and of the continent as a whole.
Ghana’s vision for good governance; rule of law; respect for human and people’s rights provide an avenue for the accelerated development of the continent. Ghana intends to make the best of it with the support of all Ghanaians in spearheading excellence on the continent for the benefit of the people of Africa.
Ghana’s great online leap
February 25, 2009 by G.O
Filed under Editorials
Its capital has a virtual Ring Road of Internet cafe’s and New York’s traffic tickets are now processed here
In Ghana, a small West African nation with a population of just over 20 million, there are 2,000 Internet cafe’s, 1,000 in the capital of Accra (population 1 million) and more than 50 on just one street, Ring Road, otherwise known as Silicon Alley. So enthusiastic are people about using computers in a country that lacks the electricity infrastructure available in Canada – that they line up to get onto the Internet.
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