We finished the third week of school. I am teaching two classes, each having 30 students, and trying to help out with some undergraduate and graduate projects. Adding a class for lecturers pursuing their PhD is also on the plan. The hope is to restructure all the labs and make sure all freshmen students have access to computers and the Internet. Getting the computer labs ready to operate will be a substantial improvement. Creating a research lab for special projects can immensely strengthen the quality of the program. 
The students are divided into four cohort levels: 100-400. Students at each level will be given a fixed schedule. The first day of school was a funny day; imagine a white guy trying to pronounce 30 names in Fonti or Ga…. I looked at the list of the names and found it impossible to pronounce any of the names. So, I asked them to introduce themselves, even the act of repeating their names was a disaster! After the introduction, a few brave students asked about me; questions like where I am coming from, what I am doing there, etc. Halfway through the class, students were still coming in as they were talking on their cell phones. A good number of students were texting during the class. I made a lot of jokes and apologized for butchering their names.
Although in each class I am missing about 5-8 students, so far, after three weeks, everything is going smoothly. In the last class, a lot of people asked questions during the lecture. Occasionally, I hear some people laughing and I have no idea why… I just laugh with them and say that hopefully one day I know what you are laughing at! They laugh more…..
We have learned a little Fonti (the local language) but I have not dared to use the 
words in the class…. As I am walking to the class female students come and ask me if they can carry my computer and books for me. I ask them if that means I have to carry their purse for them…they laugh and we change the subject.
Each student has a single 40-page notebook for each class. There are no textbooks, no lab-books, no workbooks, nothing! In many cases the instructors just make a 50-page booklets and sell them to the students. All students must purchase the copies. Some instructors provide the pdf version of the textbook. Others ask the students to go on the web and find the related materials. Almost all the 400-level students in the department have their own (very slow) laptops. The wireless Internet through out the campus is free for everyone. Due to heavy usage, the Internet slows down drastically; but I think there is more to it than just bandwidth issue. Sometimes at 8 pm, on a hot night, you see students sitting on a bench in a dark place in the quad studying; finding the right spot to get the best WiFi reception is definitely a challenging thing to do and not everyone is up to the challenge. We keep loosing power in the afternoons and it is really hard to lecture for two hours in a room with 30 students. Amazingly, the students are very tolerant and calm when we loose power. I think they are just wondering what my reaction will be….Some of the classes on campus are huge and can accommodate about 500 students. I am very sure students sitting in the back see and hear nothing! Open windows surround these classrooms so the air can flow. You can imagine how noisy the class can get, as groups of students pass by it. There is of course no air-conditioning or microphone/speaker in the classroom. I get goose bumps when I think about how many papers the instructor has to grade!
The government and universities are supposedly promoting entrepreneurship among 
graduates. This year the new government has actually put aside funding to educate small and medium size businesses; if you dig more into this initiative, you realize that a good number of the trainings are done by foreign companies (e.g., K2 Enterprise of Canada); there is no doubt Ghana is an amazing place to invest and get rich!
The biggest complains I have heard form my students is that, in spite of all the noise, the government does not actually fund small businesses particularly in manufacturing and development. These students have many good ideas, but they all think that there is no way they can do anything without seed money. Of course, such investments are not aligned with general IMF policies. I think Ghana owes IMF close to (just) 50 billion Dollars.
I have had several individual meetings with the students. One day two students came in and started talking about their project. I asked one of them if he has his laptop. He said, “yes.” I asked him if can get it. He said, “Yes!” SO he left. Ten minutes passed…. and he still had not come back. I asked his friend why he is so late. He said “there is probably traffic!”…. “Traffic?” I asked. He said, “yes, please (a common way to confirm)! He should take a taxi to go home and bring his laptop!” I was thinking what have I done!!! Twenty minutes later the poor guy shows up soaking in sweat…. I felt so bad!
Yesterday, we had our first department meeting. We started and ended the meeting by a
short pray. The meeting covered many similar issues that every department deals with. Except in this one, participants were getting paid for showing up! The department also buys food for everyone in the meeting. So, I got paid $10 for sitting in the meeting…I was thinking if my place of work follows this “innovative” example, I could actually double my salary! In Ghana, at least for teachers and government workers, the salaries are not high, but workers receive many incentives. For example, all the senior lecturers receive housing allowances or they get houses on campus for a mere $70/month. Apparently, receiving gas and tuition allowances for children are also common.
The University Teacher Union (known as UTAG) is a very powerful force in Ghana. It includes everyone working at the university, including the Deans, President, and Chancellor. We actually attended UTAG’s annual dinner this week. As usual, the UTAG dinner started by a long pray and some highlife music. Before the dinner started, the UTAG representative announced their main demand: 80 percent salary increase in 2013! I turned around and asked the Dean: “how much?”… “Eighty percent,” he replied! I started thinking about my school and how in the last five years we only hear “you should be grateful you have a job.” [You can read about Education in Ghana below]
For the dinner, they were expecting about 1000 employees, but only two-third of the 
expected crowd showed up. The dinner was all-you-can-eat and -drink! The drinks included Herb Afric (a very strong local alcoholic drink) Whisky, wine, etc. Depending on your personal connections, you could receive different types of drinks. Beer was for everyone. But only individuals with ties to the Vice-Chancellor could see the bottles of Whiskey. While drinking with the Vice-Chancellor, I brought up the possibility of getting an air-conditioner for our bungalow; apparently, it takes more than one bottle to negotiate with him! We had a great time getting to know many new people, not to mention dancing and singing in Fonti (ye-dede ye-dede, ye-dede….).
Sadly, I learned that one of my students passed away this past Sunday. Apparently, his heart had collapsed. I remember the first day as I was asking the students to talk a bit about themselves, he stood up and confidently said, “I want to graduate, get a good job, get married, and have two kids.” We miss him very much!
Yesterday, it was valentine day. In Ghana they call this day “the Chocolate day”; a way to promote the cocoa industry and selling Ghanaian chocolate. In celebrating the day, we went to a play performed by the students in the Art & Theater department. The auditorium was very large with a very low-quality sound system; the actors had to yell so they can be heard. Yet, in spite of all the technical shortcomings and difficulties, it was a great play. The performance was superb. The stage had been very nicely designed. It was interesting to see how during the play all of a sudden the audience get engaged in their own group discussion about what had just happened or said in the play.
One thing that living in Ghana teaches you rather quickly is “to live in the moment.” It
is very hard to predict tomorrow or even a few hours later. “Tomorrow” there may not be electricity or water; a trip to the farm to get eggs and vegetables may take several hours if not half-a-day; there may be no Internet for several days to answer your precious emails…. Under such circumstances, providing and receiving a high-quality education can be seriously compromised. I now realize the kind of determination it takes to pursue and complete higher education in places like Ghana.
Due to such challenges, the concept “planning ahead” is not a common practice among Ghanaians. Therefore, trying to plan and schedule something the way you are used to in the West, can be a bit frustrating! This is why cultural awareness is the first rule of doing business in Ghana [Read this interesting article prepared by KPMG]
** A little about Education in Ghana:
The government of Ghana claims that 28-40 percent of the national budget goes for education! Numbers don’t add up, but so we have heard! There are many primary and secondary schools around the country [1], [5] and Cape Coast is the center of education in Ghana – Interesting to note that according to CIA World Factbook only 5.4% of total GPD was spent on education in 2009!
Majority of the senior secondary schools in Ghana provide (inexpensive) boarding facilities, which many of the students use. In recent years a growing number of private universities and colleges has emerged, all seeking state support. Many of these institutions focus on business and marketing (non-science majors), and a few offer majors in sciences, as offering such majors tend to be more costly. A few of these private institutions are also primarily focused on ICT education, such as the Telecom University [2-3], [4]. Of course, as in any other African country, thanks to IMF and World Bank, private institutions are highly promoted and they are always considerably more expensive than public ones. In most cases these institutions accept students with lower scores; although many offer special tutoring and programs. In some cases the program is designed to send the kids to foreign countries to post graduate study.
Regardless of how much is spent on education, it seems that everyone agrees on the illiteracy rate in Ghana. According to Index Mundi the illiteracy in Ghana for males and females are estimated to be 28% and 40%, respectively [6].
Our Life In Ghana 