<<Print>>

Ama Ata Aidoo�s daughter, Kinna Likimani, says Ghana�s education system stifles creative thinking. The Mbaasem Foundation Programmes Officer told XYZ Breakfast Show Host Nana Kwaku Agyeman on Friday that: �Our education system kills our creativity�. Mbaasem Foundation, an NGO established by Ama Ata Aidoo, one of Africa�s renowned female writers, aims to promote and help develop women�s literary art. According to Likimani, ��when we talk about not achieving, not being assertive, not being creative, a lot of that is rooted in how we are educated. And our education system actually lowers our creativity�. She bemoaned the situation where �children are not inspired to continue to be children�, when they start schooling. �We don�t use the stages at which a child develops to teach them things. A lot of the stuff is through what we call �chew and pour� [and] �true and false�. We like the old mode of education where people actually memorise as opposed to understanding the concept and applying, so a lot of our exams are based on �have you memorised this theorem?�� She said: �What we can�t do is, we can�t look at our University graduates, wake up one day and go: �These are not the graduates we want�. We need to start from early childhood development, Likimani observed.