RE: Sex for Grades-- Full BBC Documentary: Really True?/ FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIRECTORATE
Kissi, Edward
Fyi.
Edward Kissi
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Kissi, Edward
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2019 12:15 PM
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Victor Essien <vess...@gmail.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Sex for Grades-- Full BBC Documentary: Really True?
I have heard about the BBC documentary, and seen clips of it, thanks to some friends in Accra, who have shared them with me. I have not offered my perspective on the actual documentary
because I am yet to watch it from beginning to end. Nonetheless, as someone who went through Ghana's education system from elementary school, in the 1960s, to the University of Ghana, and taught there as a Teaching Assistant, in the 1980s, I am aware of this
disturbing business of teachers having sex with students. This practice has a long history in Ghana. I am aware of aspects of it.
I remember the headteacher of my village school impregnating the girls’ prefect. The elders of the village compelled him to marry her, and also buy her a Singer sewing machine as compensation for the abrupt ending of her education. At a time when a simple and
poorly-written love letter to a girl in the school could earn a boy 24 strokes of the headteacher's cane, the headteacher and some of his staff were knee-deep in the business of picking the mature girls among us for secret escapades. We did not dare to talk
about what many of us (the boys) knew, for fear of retribution and the charge of "gossip." Elementary school teachers sleeping with schoolgirls was a widespread phenomenon in our school district.
I heard similar things at secondary school in the 1970s. There, rumor was rampant that some girls spent time (including nights) at the then "bungalows" of some teachers. Those of us who were disturbed by it (because girls we had crushes on were involved) feared
asking too many questions, let alone organizing protests. That could get one dismissed for "bearing false witness against a teacher." Besides, I assumed at that time that this conduct of teachers sleeping with schoolgirls (well- known in the central region
of Ghana where I went to school) was one of society's facts of life that only the moral purist saw as a travesty. This assumption is no longer a cognitive luxury. It is condoning sexual harassment.
I studied at Legon, as an undergrad, from 1983 to 1987, and did my national service there from 1988 to 1989. I must admit that I did not hear anything about professors and students offering sex in exchange for grades, or vice versa, and no one shared any tangible
proof of such with me while I lived on the campus. Certainly, that was the period before the cellphone. Moreover, I was a very poor guy from the village who was not wired into campus life. So, if any such thing existed at Legon, I could not have known.
I visited the University of Ghana this past summer (June). There are some professors I asked about and wanted to meet. But the wry smiles that greeted my request made me suspicious. When I probed further, I found out that the university had already dismissed,
and also disciplined, some faculty members who had engaged in some improper dalliances with their students. My sense of ethical conduct in the classroom was outraged, but not my historical memory of this kind of malfeasance in Ghana's educational system that
I went through myself.
I left Accra a few months ago with renewed respect for the University administration that acted swiftly to dismiss professors who had defiled their profession and their women students. Consequently, when some friends in Ghana started sending me news reports
about "a big sex scandal at Legon" about to be exposed in a BBC report, I was startled.
The professor (Ransford Gyampo) who is "implicated" in the documentary has denied having engaged in any trading of "sex for grades." His appearance in the documentary (at least the scenes I have watched) involves attempting to seduce an undercover female "reporter"
that the BBC had sent to meet him at a Mall in Accra. The professor and the University of Ghana's Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee have insisted that the professor's behavior at that Mall may be odd, but it has nothing to do with the subject matter of the
documentary.
No one has yet produced any hard evidence of the professor's involvement in any sex for grades transaction. So, until more evidence emerges to bolster the BBC's claims about Legon, the University of Ghana, in the interim, deserves a benefit of the doubt.
Professor Gyampo has threatened to sue the BBC. Let us hope that he does because due process has its own value of producing collaborating or exculpatory evidence. That the University of Ghana has been pro-active in the past in dealing with cases of on-campus
sexual harassment is a good thing. That it has its own Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee is a testament to the university’s awareness of the possibility of such misconduct in Ghana's educational institutions.
Let us wait patiently to see how this sex for grades matter unfolds at the University of Ghana, and elsewhere. At the very least, the BBC documentary has shed light on an old problem. Perhaps, this might be the bleach that could clean any remaining stains in
our classrooms in Ghana.
I will watch the documentary soon and add to this perspective if warranted.
Edward Kissi
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Assensoh, Akwasi B.
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2019 8:31 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com; Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Cc: deji...@yahoo.com; Onyumbe Lukongo <onyumbe...@subr.edu>; kes...@yahoo.com; afaug...@yahoo.com; doy...@gmail.com; Thomas Ford <tmfo...@yahoo.com>; Nana Amoah <mabena...@gmail.com>; Kwame Karikari <afumka...@gmail.com>; asse...@uoregon.edu;
drben...@aol.com; Godwin Ohiwerei <drohi...@gmail.com>; rig...@yahoo.com; Ibrahim Gassama <igas...@uoregon.edu>; George Kieh <georg...@yahoo.com>; Maximillan Davis <maximill...@gmail.com>; Michael Williams <toks...@gmail.com>; Vida Kwansa <vmkw...@yahoo.com>;
Victor Essien <vess...@gmail.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Sex for Grades-- Full BBC Documentary: Really True?
Dear All (Compatriots and Friends):
It seems that matters, dealing with sex or romance, easily travel fast and far! Our own
USA-AFRICA DIALOGUE shared the link below , purported to have come from a BBC film.
Before the Dialogue dissemination, a nice American friend (a local Physician) had texted
either a similar or the same film material to me and, in his text, sought my confirmation that,
on the African continent, sex was being exchanged (allegedly by mostly young African women)
for grades on university campuses.
I refused to confirm what the film depicted, as i did not know the logistics and authenticity of of
the so-called "facts", which constituted the basis for the making of the film. allegedly made by the
BBC. Why did I refuse to offer any confirmation? I will attempt to explain below:
For example, when we were in our teens (I'm now in my 70s), some European Journalists visited
Ghana, came to our small towns purporting to be "tourists"; we lived in the gold-mining town of
Dunkwa-on-Offin in Ghana. You could imagine why European Journalists (as "tourists"), would come
to our small gold-mining town.
Very often, they asked us -- as "ignorant" teenagers, male and female alike-- to take off our clothes for
them to take naked photos of us (as youngsters) to bring with them to Europe, sadly to claim that Africans
walked naked because "we did not have clothes." Since they gave the youngsters imported European pastries
(including cookies, cakes, chewing gums, etc.) and, sometimes, even monetary gifts (i.e. some British coins or
or francs and a pound Sterling) , several youngsters did oblige and, very unfortunately, they did exactly as they
were asked or requested to do.
In our case (as Assensoh brothers and sisters, with a wealthy father), we used to dress in nice, silky Kente cloths,
usually woven and sold from our late father's Kente Factory (or Looms); and also, we were very shy, with Roman Catholic
(or Christian) religious upbringing. So, often, we ran away from those depraved European Journalists or "tourists". As
a result, I can never tell if the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Journalists -- if the documentary is authentic -- maybe
used similar nefarious activities to capture the images in the film being shown around the world! Or is it Neo-Colonialism and
Imperialism all over again?
Thanks, indeed, to the late Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, who has defined both (Neo-Colonialism and Imperialism)
very eloquently in some of his published books (including Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism), part of the many
reasons for his swift overthrow in a Western intelligence-instigated Ghana military-cum-police coup d'etat on February 24, 1966,
when he was out of Ghana on a peace mission visiting Southeast Asia! Dr. Nkrumah was too far away from Ghana; therefore, he
could not rush back to quell the armed insurrection, in which some of his military leaders and security personnel died, although
the then American Ambassador Franklin Williams, in an interview, described the anti-Nkrumah coup as being bloodless!!
Cheers!
A.B. Assensoh.
------------
Rev. A.B. Assensoh, LL.M., PH.D.,
Co-Book Review Editor of Journal of African
and Asian Studies (of Leiden, The Netherlands)
Professor Emeritus (Indiana University),
Courtesy Professor Emeritus
(University of Oregon),
Department of History, McKenzie Hall (2nd Floor),
University of Oregon,
Eugene, OR 97403, U.S.A.
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 5:17 AM
To: dialogue; Yoruba Affairs
Subject: [External] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sex for Grades-- Full BBC Documentary
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kojo
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Kissi, Edward
Edward Kwabena Kissi
Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 5:42:29 PM
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Sex for Grades-- Full BBC Documentary: Really True?/ FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIRECTORATE
