There exists a myth in Ghana that the smartest students are those who pursue the pure sciences in high school (Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Advanced Mathematics). Due to this erroneously held belief, most students tend to entrap themselves in this field, even though they might have been better off in other courses like General Arts, Business Studies or the Visual Arts. This phenomenon is what motivated some YES Ghana Alumni members to undertake a mentoring and counselling/career guidance session with final year students of Staff Basic Junior High School in commemoration of Global Youth Service Day.

During this event, we debunked the aforementioned notion. Also, all the YES Ghana Alumni members took turns to talk about the courses they pursued in high school, the challenges they came with, and the career options in their respective fields of study. Salim talked about the science courses and the career options there, with much emphasis on the medical sciences. Maureen handled General Arts, and as a law student in university, she talked at length about law, in addition to the other professions in the field. Zeenat also talked a little about General Arts and a lot about Journalism and the importance of extracurricular activities in high school. Business Studies was discussed by Alhaji and Rosemary Kwofie, both students at the Business School at the University of Ghana. Ahmad talked about the various engineering professions, but stressed the aviation industry, one gradually booming sector which has not received much attention, more.

Of course we could not organize a program without talking about the enormous benefits we derived from the YES program. Elizabeth, who is a recent returnee, talked about her experience on the program and encouraged the students to apply for it in the coming year. Shafic, who was the MC of the program, also talked about some of the opportunities available to students, such as the prestigious African Leadership Academy, which is a two year highly selective pre-university institution in South Africa.

The event was a success in our view, because it got most of the students thinking about the options they can pursue in high school. The students had a better understanding of what would be required of them in the various courses and thus were well placed to make an informed decision when the time comes to choose their courses. In general, we had a positive response, and the alumni body is already looking at ways to expand this session to other schools.

Participating alumni were Shafic Osman, Ahmad Abdul Nasir, Zeenat Abdul Rahman, Maureen Bansah, Abdul-Razak Salim, Alhaji Mohammed, Elizabeth Bedzakin and Rosemary Kwofie.