Africa - Science - Religion; Why Are Some Countries Lacking Decent Science Education

Thursday, 23 May 2024

By TB Obwoge

This poster is a Kenyan national, he has almost 100,000 followers on his Facebook account, where he posts random facts about Africa and other countries around the world.

He is just one of the thousands of African influencers that usually copy and paste the same information and share it hundreds of times. However they don't take the time to fact check the information that they're copying and pasting. This is very embarrassing for the continent because some of the misinformation is harmful and something decades old.

I don't follow Elijah K. Samuel Kirichu at all, over I can't help but notice his posts, I scan them and at first I would shake my head, then I started getting angry. Some of his posts show that there is a seriuos issue with the quality of education in Kenya.

Kenya is a country I've lived in and frankly I feel as if the education in Kenya is much better than that in Ghana. Ghana's education was recently ranked 137th out of 167 countries around the world. It shows why I found communication with the average Ghanaian so difficult. One can't help but have well thought out conversations with most Kenyans.

Kenayans seem much more worldly than Ghanaians and accepting of others who look different, there wasn't any street cat calling towards me eer whenliving in Kenya. But in Ghana is was constant and several times a day even in the large capital city of Accra.

He (Elijah K. Samuel Kirichu), didn't know the definintion of 'nieghbor' he posted something claiming that Nigeria and Ghana weren't actually nieghbors. The post went viral but I couldn't help but notice another page posted a fact check on his post.

He then changed the post to read that Ghana and Nigeria didn't share a border, there were hundreds of comments from Africans that didn't know the map of the continent. How can they not know the basic order of the layout of the countries in Africa?

I find this hard to understand because social media, especially TikTok is filled with so many Africans making posts calling Americans poorly educated. They assume that all Americans should be educated on every single country in the world, to which there is not enough years in the American educational system to teach about every country in the world.

Africans countries don't teach about every country in the world either. But come on, people know that someone that lives even 3 to 5 houses away from them are their neighbors, my Kenyan husband calls someone who lives half a mile away from him in his parents village his neighbor.

Ghana's newest edcucaion minister is pushing back on the ranking, he's saying that the countries education is not 137th in the country. However Ghana's government has often lied about their education.

Akufo-Addo, president of Ghana claimed that the literacy rate in Ghana was 85%. Ghana's education is in English their official language, how can that be correct when Ghana doesn't have an English speaking population of 85%?

In May 2024, the Ministry of Education (MoE) of Ghana rejected claims that the country's secondary education is ranked 137th out of 167 countries, calling the assertion "inaccurate and misleading". According to a 2023 report, Ghana's secondary education is ranked 98th out of 176 countries, which is a significant improvement from its 2013 ranking of 101.

Source: ModernGhana.Com

Break as I explain the post that moved me to write this article -

Science does explain why music moves people to experience emotional responces.

Music and Mood

Listening to (or making) music increases blood flow to brain regions that generate and control emotions.2 The limbic system, which is involved in processing emotions and controlling memory, “lights” up when our ears perceive music.3

The chills you feel when you hear a particularly moving piece of music may be the result of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that triggers sensations of pleasure and well-being.4-5 As your braMusic and Mood

Listening to (or making) music increases blood flow to brain regions that generate and control emotions.2 The limbic system, which is involved in processing emotions and controlling memory, “lights” up when our ears perceive music. Beecomes familiar with a particular song, your body may release dopamine upon hearing just the first few notes of the song. Just as Pavlov’s dogs learned to associate food with a ringing bell – and eventually began drooling at the sound of a bell, even when no food was in sight – our bodies actively anticipate pleasure upon hearing familiar notes.

Interestingly, music can affect our mood even if we can’t recognize or replicate the notes and rhythm. Science has documented numerous instances of people who suffered brain injuries and lost their ability to distinguish melodies but retained the ability to recognize the emotion conveyed by music.6 Researchers noted that these patients had sustained damage to the temporal lobes of the brain, a region involved in comprehending melody; their frontal lobes, which play a role in emotional regulation, were unaffected.7

Source: Pfizer

Growing up in America, my music teacher taught this to all of us, however it was also touched upon in my biology classes throughout my edcucation. Why aren't they teaching this in many African countries? Pretty much the way they are refusing to teach some Africans that humans are animals. I also have never heard of a school in Africa that teaches music to young children, but of course I don't know every school in Africa.

Science also teaches about emotions, however you can see from the above posts that his country in Kenya hasn't taught this. Also note this once again may be why mental health in Kenya and other African countries are so bad. Men in Kenya are taught to not show emotions, but imagine if they were educated about emotions.

Later I will explain that there are more than male and females sexes and no this has nothing to do with transgender people or homosexuality. It has a lot to do with the fact that people are born intersex everyday, around the world. Another thing SOME African countries don't teach and will never teach because of homophobia and religion.

The quality of Ghana's education was ranked 125th out of 183 countries, this ranking is horrible because the schools and facilities in Ghana are disgusting. Children have to attend school in some buildings that I has an adult would not want to enter.

Many of the failities in Ghana lack basic water, toiliting facilities, furniture, books, chairs and even desks or tables. There are still thousands of schools under trees not only in Ghana but several African countries.

Ghana has spent millions on tourist sites, sites that didn't need overhalls while the citizens need paved roads, schools, stable electricity and food security. This has happened constantly over the 7-years under Ghana's current government. Same for Kenya, there is so much money wasted on William Ruto's traveling, less spent on the needs of the citizens.

Some African leaders even banned traveling for their government staffers, while William Ruto continues to travel the world.

The government of Malawi is also struggling to build schools.

The one thing all of these African countries have in common, is religion. These are some of the most religios countries on the continent, you wouldn't know it by the behavior of the majority of the citizens.

Lynching is common in all these countries, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, as well as homophobia. Religion is holding back the quality and material taught in these countries.

Most Africans would want to fight you if you told them that humans are animals, this is taught to most American first graders. This is a 6 to 7-year old basic science lesson. All living things have been classified as animals so why aren't they teaching this in some African countries?

Why Are Some African Governments Wasting Money While Africans Are Starving To Death?

Millions of USD allocated on tourist sites, tourism, government waste, campaigning.

In a social media post under a Ghana news story many Ghanaians admitted to only eating one meal a day, for various reasons, most stated money. There were some saying that long hours at work made them unable to eat a meal. The majority said they couldn’t afford to eat more than one complete meal in a day.

The East African headline points out that there are 50 million people in the area of East Africa facing starvation. Much due to lack of rainfall as well as maize import costs. The entire population of Kenya is an estimated 53 million people (according to Worldometer). Kenyans have taken to social media with several hashtags to make their government aware of the rising costs of food prices.

With only 2–3% having access to Twitter those using the platform overwhelmed the system yet the government didn’t take much time from infighting & campaigning to listen to Kenyans pleas. (This includes Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan as well as Kenya.)

Millions are facing starvation while some governments are reporting to allocate millions of USD on things that won’t benefit their own citizens. Things that will only attract foreigners & tourists to the country. At one time Ghana was on the top ten most underdeveloped African countries for the lack of paved roads throughout the country. Only 27% of the roads were paved in a 2019 report.

Source Medium

Food insecurity and education should take priority over anything in these countries. Ghana is the number one gold producer in the world. Kenya is listed in the top 5 countries in Africa for investors. However to pay for education for your child in a good school is costly.

One Ethiopian living in Kenya shared that one of her close friends had to leave Kenya. She said they were paying close to $20 thousand USD a year for their children's education.

Many people living in Kenya have to turn to private schools because of the lack of decent government education. High school in Kenya, is not free and the government doesn't cover the costs.

Relgion In Africa & Suicide Rates -

When I did research on mental health in Africa, I was able to make the connection to noise pollution in Africa to mental health. I found that these highly religious, mostly Christian African countries have higher rates of noise from churches. Churches that operate at all hours of the day and night.

Sadly many people don't follow my writing, I haven't tried to publish on larger platforms but these issues need to be addressed as the African continent is home to the highest rates of suicides.

Religion in most countries in Africa is forced down the throats of Africans, where people are shamed for not practicing a religion especially in Christian countries.

Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world, also very strict when it comes to religion. Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda are much the same, even Tanzania which has a heavy Muslim population.

Then you get to West Africa, where Ghana and Nigeria are extremely religios, Nigerians seemed so proud that they were listed as one of the top most religious countries in the world.

However that doesn't seem to mean anything when you look at he level of crime and corruption in Nigeria. Most people know that Nigerians around the world have a very bad name when in comes to bad behavior, especially crime and scamming.

The same for most other West African Muslim majority countries as well, they aren't exempt from poor education when it comes to science either. The Islmaic faith feels the same about homosexuality as well and teaching comprehensive science would go against their religious beliefs as well.

I could write about this for days, perhaps this deserves a part two, who knows.

Thank you for reading 🙏🏽 Please consider buying a coffee for Lacey’s House efforts in Gender Equality & Children’s Rights.

©️TB Obwoge 2024 All Rights Reserved