Students shy away from study of History - Dr Owusu-Ansah
History, one of the most studied subjects from the basic to the tertiary education level in the past, has now become an endangered subject, a lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has warned.
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A lecturer at the Department of History and Political Science at KNUST, Dr Daniel Owusu-Ansah, said in Ghana today, many teachers and students saw history as a boring subject and were, therefore, shying away from it.
“Indeed, they bear the notion that there is nothing profitable studying about dead people and events of the past. But it is a wrong notion that undervalues the study of the subject, the 33-year-old lecturer told the Daily Graphic in Kumasi.
The young lecturer was particularly worried that authorities of some senior high schools in the Ashanti Region have dropped History from the list of subjects studied in their schools, while other schools were also considering taking it off the list of subjects offered in the schools, arguing the subject was not worth studying.
“We need to build the interest in the subject at the basic level so that the children would grow with it,” the lecturer said.
Consequently, he advocated a national crusade against the perception in sections of the educational sector and even beyond that studying History as a subject was valueless.
He argued that History remained equally important as any other subject thought from the basic to the university level.
In 1995, Dr Owusu-Ansah made history at the Fumso D/A Junior High School (JHS) in the rural district of Adansi North in the Ashanti Region as the first pupil to obtain single digit aggregate at the Basic Education Certificate (BECE) examination.
His extraordinary academic prowess saw him make a quick climb on the academic ladder and at age 29, he was awarded the PhD in History from the KNUST before taking up the lectureship job at the same university at that young age
Dr Owusu-Ansah indicated that the confused feelings of inferiority around the subject were unfortunate since there was history attached to every profession and other facets of national life.
“Mention medicine, engineering, law, pharmacy, Mathematics and all the other professions and you will find history attached to them,” he said.
Dr Owusu-Ansah stated that History built up nationalism “and we need to accord the subject its rightful place on the academic calendar.”
“Perhaps now that we have a historian as President of the land, better days lie ahead of the subject,” he said.
“Historians are supposed to be the custodians of everything and I am happy that I belong to this class of people.”
Dr Owusu-Ansah said lecturers at the department together with the Historical Society of Ghana and the History Students Association of Ghana had embarked on a programme to remove the negative perception about the subject in schools.
The initiative include the establishment of history clubs in schools.
“We the lecturers have been meeting students in schools to talk to them on the benefits of studying History and we believe things would change” Dr Owusu-Ansah said.
He was happy that the situation at the KNUST was improving gradually, and expressed the hope that a lot more students would offer History as a major course at the undergraduate level.
One problem with the study of History at the tertiary level was with the private universities. Currently virtually all the private universities do not offer the course.
By Kwame Asare Boadu/Daily Graphic/Ghana