{"id":369349,"date":"2017-11-08T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=369349"},"modified":"2017-11-08T06:00:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T06:00:19","slug":"obrempong-writes-my-secondary-school-struggle-and-free-shs-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/11\/obrempong-writes-my-secondary-school-struggle-and-free-shs-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Obrempong Writes: My secondary school struggle; and Free SHS now"},"content":{"rendered":"
I have been known first, throughout my primary school in the Central Region, (The village of Odonase) in the Abura Asebu Kwamankese district as Samuel Acquah. Today, I am known by others as Obrempong Yaw Ampofo. My schoolmates George Baffoe, and later Edmond Baidoe were the big brains I had to work hard to beat in class.<\/p>\n
I was selling Fante Kenkey every weekday at the district capital Abura Dunkwa, before returning to the village for school. This means, I had to wake up at 5:00am, sweep, bath, set off to sell the Kenkey, and then return to school before 7:30am.<\/p>\n
Whenever I was late for school, the teachers understood. I remember in class four, when a newly posted teacher lashed me for being late for school. Sadly, the teacher wept with me and said sorry many times when she realized I had to sell daily before school.<\/p>\n
After school, we had to join mother in the farm, who had by then finished selling some Kenkey at home. It\u2019s a daily routine; and it was a 10-25km distance to the farm to weed and to help bring foodstuff home.<\/p>\n
I completed Junior High School in 2002, after writing the BECE twice, following the leakage of the 2002 BECE (even though it was those in the cities who were benefiting from the leakage). My Mother, after struggling to take care of us (six in number) through cassava farming and selling Fante Kenkey, encouraged us to join our father who had married another woman in Kumasi to continue our education.<\/p>\n
I and my elder brother George Acquah, completed the 2002 BECE in the same year at school at Odonase D\/A JHS. We then headed for Kumasi with great expectations in October 2002. But it was the beginning of a rather sad start to life.<\/p>\n
To our surprise, my grade 28 (and 32 for my brother), even though was the best throughout the history of our village school at the time, was no competitor in the schools in the Ashanti Region. Truly, we were no match for our fellow graduates in the city in terms of education.<\/p>\n
The obvious challenge surfaced; bad grades, so no school for you in the city. Our father, who has been staying in Kotei, some 4 kilometres from KNUST in the Oforikrom constituency, sent me to the Kumasi High School at Gyinyase to seek for admission. But I could not gain admission into Kumasi High School for obvious reasons. There was the afternoon session at Kumasi Senior High School which had just been introduced. [It was a way to accommodate the large number of students who graduated that year]. Bingo! I was in there with over 500 other students (of my kind, some even with better grades but were with me there) in this category studying business.<\/p>\n
My brother had to better his grades at the Kotei RC in the next two years. Father, who thought what he, had done for me what Napoleon couldn\u2019t do, left everything to us. No pocket money, no transportation to school, absolutely nothing from his end. Here came the opportunity.<\/p>\n
Construction works were at its peak in Kotei which required people with active energy. Even though I was 15 years then, I had no choice but to see it as the manna God was sending down to me. My brother will go to school in the morning daily, but mine started daily at 3:00pm. That was the opportunity window!<\/p>\n
I will go and search for construction sites early in the morning which required labourers. As many caring foremen and contractors were denying me work on the grounds of my age, others after listening to my explanations, offered me work, but were not going to entertain me leaving for school when its 1:00pm with full pay for the day.<\/p>\n
Saturdays, and at times Sundays, were days for serious search for construction sites for myself and my brother. That was our source of livelihood for over two years whilst I continued schooling.<\/p>\n
Sadly before I realized, our number in the afternoon school had reduced to some 40 students or a little over that. Majority of students had stopped on the grounds that, that wasn\u2019t the kind of secondary school education they envisaged or wanted. Many also became frustrated when we had to be moved from the Kumasi High School premises to two different primary schools (Osei Tutu International School and Mother Smith) all at Gyinyase on the grounds that our school someway somehow had become illegal.<\/p>\n
Others, including myself also owed school fees of Ghc74 for two terms. The situation degenerated when teachers also started skipping classes. I was confused!<\/p>\n
Back at home, the landlord\u2019s daughter was returning from the United States and we had to evacuate the uncompleted building which had hosted us for nearly three years. Jeez! What do we do? I said to my brother when he announced the eviction notice to me whilst I was returning from Madam Patricia\u2019s Business Management class. We had at this point tried to live without our father for some years. We were teenagers doing our own thing whilst he was also living with his wife and two daughters just a fence away from our home.<\/p>\n
It was difficult for us to return to him in view of previous treatment from him. We had at some point given him our GH80 we had gotten from construction works for him to get back his lost driving license. But he returned to us that the money got missing on his way to the license office.
\nWe were totally confused and I particularly was considering returning to our village in the Central Region. But someone who was going to shape my future was about to show himself to me.<\/p>\n
In all these, we kept sending messages through people to be passed on to our mother back in the Central Region. Unfortunately, throughout our two to three years in Kumasi, mother got only two out of the over 10 messages sent through eight different persons.<\/p>\n
She did not respond to our first call, which was about the treatment meted out to us. According to her, these were experiences of city life for first-timers like us. She however paid a visit upon the second message from the same messenger. As expected of a mother, she expressed shocked over the development, and encouraged us to stay focused.<\/p>\n
In fact, it was during her visit that she encouraged us to give the GH80 to our dad on the grounds that if he got back his license, at least things will improve. Sadly, that did not happen! As it had been the trend, when the news of our exit from the house was given to the messenger, the message did not get to our mother when we needed her advice the most.<\/p>\n
We waited for over four days amidst anxiety. Without hearing from mother, I decided not to use the next day\u2019s transportation for school, but to walk to school whilst we waited to hear from her. That was to prepare, such that in the event she asks us to get back to the village, there will be some monies on us.<\/p>\n
Whilst walking that afternoon, I saw a colleague afternoon student walking from a distance ahead of me. Ben Kofi happened to be the son of Kumasi High School\u2019s main gate security guard. I walked faster to join him. After a quick chat on the developments in our school, he counselled that I leave all the home related issues to my brother, pick a few things, and perch with fellow Kumasi High School students who were at Peace Hostel near \u201cTo Be Guest House\u201d at Gyinyase.<\/p>\n
The challenge wasn\u2019t me moving to join them, but that I didn\u2019t know the students there. After the Economics class (which was the only class we had for the day), I used the rest of the day to test the waters at the hostel. I met Ernest Bombokuli, a second year General Art\u2019s student from northern Ghana. I asked how things are done, and who runs the hostel. He introduced me to Bro Yaw, a nephew of the owner of the hostel, real name, Nana Yaw Sarpong Kumankuma. He asked that I pay GH20 cedis monthly instead of the GH30 others were paying after listening to my story. I accepted it and discussed it later with my brother.<\/p>\n
He also agreed I moved to the hostel whilst he also moves out with the remaining items to perch with Obed Amoako, Michael Dankwa or Michael Adu who were his classmates at Kotei RC Primary.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Michael Adu\u2019s parents at Kotei accepted to accommodate him till the remaining one year before he completes JHS. I also went to stay in the hostel at Gyinyase. This presented a whole set of troubles for me.<\/p>\n
At Gyinyase, there were no construction works that I could do before school in the afternoon. I had to resort to eating from the Kumasi Senior High dining. Unfortunately, and unknown to me, the tables at the dining hall were assigned to specific students, and each student knew who made up the tables.<\/p>\n