Regulars Opinion


Reflections of an ordinary woman by Akua Djanie


Where is the safest place to raise children?


Riots in England, lessons for Africa


I am facing one of the biggest dilemmas essons for Africa. The state must not take aw y parental control over children!


The recent riots in England provide useful i ln my life and I simply have no clue what to do. Where do I raise my African children? In Africa or England?


S B


ack in May 2009, I wrote in this column about giving children their rights. My stance was that the only “right” children should have eriously. I am at the point where I don’t know shelter. I wrote back then: “These days not ay passes that we don’t hear of a child tabbing another in the UK. Being in a gang and carrying weapons such as guns and


knives appear to be the norm now for children growing up in th making me wonder if my decision is the right


or teachers, as the state has taken over that role.”


is the right to education, love, food, and where to aise my two African sons, aged 14 and a 9 d. For as long as I can remember, I have said s I would raise my sons on African, or more precisely Ghanaian, soil. And so far, so good. But certain events have occurred which are


UK. And who is there to discipline them? Certainly not their parents one.


In light of the recent riots in England, I find myself once more pleted his Basic Education Certificate Exam (BECE), and he is supposed to attend secondiary school. Prior to the exams, parents were invited to their children’s schools to select five (or was it six) secondary schools they would like their children to attend. As with most parents, I wanted to choose the very best. And thatA was when the headmaster told me to forget it. According account for what happened, for me, the major


rights. The day the state ecide to give children their rights was top secondary school.


The main one is this: My 14-year old boy has recently com- reflecting on th s issue of children’s rights. Like everyone else who watched the scenes unfol ng live on televisi n, I was appalled by the behaviour of these children, some as young as 10 years old. But I was not shocked. What happened was bound to happen. It was just a matter of time.


nd although ther are many factors to consider when trying to to him, because their school was not considered a top school in Ghana, it meant my child would not get the chance to attend a he beginning of the end. Thanks to children’s rights, adults can But hold on, Mr Headmaster, aren’t secondary schools chosen on a ballot basis? To this, the Headmaster rolled


ason is children’s


no longer discipline children. The power of the parent, the p wer by a comput


of the teacher, the power of the elders in the community, were his eyes and looked at me as if I had just dropped down a scale reflection of a s ciety in which children can do as they please. No adult would dare discipline them for fear of being reported to the uthorities as abusers.


Thus I found it rather ironic that as riots the broke out across children attending any of these schools, computer-generated placements or not. Oh y s, I can dream all I like, but most likely that is what it will be – just a dream.


38 October 2011 New African 70 | July 2011 | Ne |w African


all taken away by the state. So what we aw in the UK riots was a or two in his books. Indeed omputers do the selection, but the old boy network works bett r than the computers! So peopl l aike me who did not attend school in Ghana and therefore have no links to these op secondary schools are unlikely to see their England and young people decided to loot as many goods as they could, the powers that be actually had the nerve to come on tel- evision and demand of parents to “phone your children to come


So now I find myself in a situation where if I decide to let my


child attend secondary school in Ghana, it will be at some unknown school. And this will affect his future in Ghana. Because whether we like it or not, Ghana and most likely across Africa, business is conducted with old school chums. Whoever my child’s classmates are at secondary school, will affect his future life in Ghana. This I know from my own experience of not having attended school in Ghana. It sucks, but it is the reality of life. Oh, how times have changed. I hear stories of the past when a


Ghanaian education was something to behold. People from other African countries saw it as a great privilege to be educated in Ghana. I hear of the past when with a qualification from Ghana, you could travel anywhere and be on an equal footing with those educated in Europe, for example. But now, I don’t think what our schools are offering our children can get them ahead in this fast-moving ICT world – unless you are privileged enough to work for a company that pays your children’s school fees, or you are very wealthy. The situation is that bad. We have all heard and seen images of the state of African classrooms. It really is that bad. And the good schools, like I said, you have to be in a certain income bracket to even consider those. It is amazing, but if you pick a random African child and say a random African-American child, you will notice a vast difference as I watched him speak, I wondered if my ears were deceiving m Was that really the Commissioner of Police asking parents to tell their children what to do? What? Was this not England? The land wheRight now, the only advantage I see to raising my African parents to take the high road, but not in such a nice way? Amazingly, Sir Paul Stephenson was not the only one. Soon pol ticians and other players in th field joined in. And I had to laugh. Not the kind of laugh that you do when you are happy, but the kind of laugh that asks “Are you for real?” Seriously. Did the people, these policy and decision-makers, really think, after taki g way the power of parents, that any child out looting and rioting, would an we their pa ents’ phon call and “come back home”? Was it not a little too late to be calling on parents?


riots was a reflection of a society in which children can do as they please. No adult would dare discipline them for fear of being reported to the authorities as abusers.”


home” (as Sir Paul St phenson, Britain’s police hief, put it). I mean, – in language, in confidence, in attitude, in ambition, in drive. It is almost as if we are educating our children on the continent not to believe in themselves.


re children have rights? The land where children can tell their children on African soil is the safety aspect. And even there, there is no guarantee that they will not be attacked in South Africa or Libya! Oh yes, I have been weighing up the pros and cons of leaving my children in Ghana or relocating back to the UK. Because really I am the woman I am today simply because of my British public school education. I look around me in Ghana and I realise there is a vast difference between those of us raised in the diaspora and our peers we left back home. There is a vast difference in what we consider right and wrong, in how we think, in how we want to get things done.


something solid and positive from Africa. In Africa, children do seems to function in


not have rights over adults. I mean, they are not abused, but the one born, raised and educated on the African continent. And i take umbrage when their children are disciplined by other adults. In England it is each man for himself. The welfare state has taken


And for o ce I think England should really sit up and learn As incredible as it may sound, the diaspora African brain totally opposite way to the brain of some-


sense of community is still alive, so much so that parents do not frightens me to think my children will have the latter. It is true I have not travelled to all 54 African countries, and I should not generalise but by and large I think I would rather my children thought like the diasporans I know – both those I grew up with outside Africa and those I have met in Africa.


Which puts me in a dilemma. Do I really want to raise my children outside Africa? I look at the children in England today and I cringe. I look at what the British state has done to parent- ing and it saddens and frightens me. Today, it seems nobody is


over everything. So by the age of 17 years, a child can decide to leave home and the local council will house him or her. Seventeen! Do you remember when you were seventeen years old? At that age, we think we know it all, but in reality we are still children. And this is something the state seemed to have forgotten. Right now, England is on a downward spiral. And if some drastic action is ot taken, only God knows what will happen. I do


“What we saw in the UK


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