The cry of the village teacher

I have been interacting with a good number of teachers of late and it's very sad and so pathetic that, there is a teacher who on every blessed day sees either a snake or a scorpion at where he teaches. Even myself, was once bitten by a centipede whiles I was asleep. Seeing human excreta around school compounds or in the classrooms once a while by some 'village teachers' is just one of the many few daily rewards teachers in villages receive from heaven.

Even a village with just three "Atta Kwame" buildings and some few cocoa farms who have nothing to boast of, can boast of having a school. I mean to say, at where there is no nurse, no doctor, no police, there is a teacher.

Living conditions in certain villages are so ugly that the director general himself will not take it kind if he is posted there. Some villages are just next to a farm by comparison, and even with that you have to walk several kilometres before reaching where you can get a means of transportation. And there are a lot of these villages which have no electricity, no network coverage, poor road network, no portable drinking water, and access to healthcare facility among many other unendurable concoctions.

There are some other villages where humans share the same source of water with animals. You just imagine how difficult it will be to prove to a pupil or a student that water is colourless in a village with its only source of drinking water being yellowish-brown in colour.

And when you accept postings to such places, which in reality is a battle for a life beginner like you and me, not forgetting about the risk involved, and the unchoiced sacrifices you have to make, the only thing the 'lazy dogs' who can't even ensure we are paid at the right time do, is to sit in their air-conditioners and give orders.

I'm afraid to say that, there are some prisons in UK and US which is more better to live in there than being in some of these villages. I am not saying this to look down upon the inhabitants of such villages, but to draw clear distinctions between someone born and bred at a place and another who is alien to the living conditions of such a place.

For instance, Rev. Thomas B. Freeman and Dunwell were killed by Mosquitoes while in Ghana, meanwhile the same mosquitoes were biting Ghanaians at that time and they were not dying.

Despite all these numerous challenges, and hell-on-earth experiences we are forcefully facing, we are denied transportation allowance, risk allowance, and even interest on our delayed arrears and unpaid salaries.

It sometimes cripples the minds and hearts of teachers when you hear people who know nothing about teaching and our struggles, chanting "teachers reward is from above".

While in some other countries it's more difficult to become a teacher than becoming a doctor, teachers in Ghana are being treated just a little better than slaves. And I am waiting and hoping for the day where our slave masters will remember that

"All professionals can boast but the teacher taught them all."