My Journey To PhD In Scotland

A little story to celebrate my doctoral graduation today. I’m not very inclined to celebrating graduations. But this is special for me. Special because it’s a PhD in Economics from the Adam Smith Business School. And more so because I feel I have set a standard for children from my family and the immediate environment I grew up.

Any child who wants to be ambitious academically from Bishanaayiri and Tamplungu at large has someone to point to – hopefully that stimulates ambitions and affirms possibilities. From my late father’s 18 children, getting to secondary school in 2005 meant that I had already blazed a trail. Of 12 before me, only 2 had basic education but that was where it ended. It felt like a tall order to dream of obtaining a bachelors degree. In hindsight, I see why none of my siblings before me made it to secondary school.

In 2005, while my school mates were busy preparing for basic school exams (BECE), I was busy being a herdsman. I would close from school at 1:00pm, get home and take a few sheep owned by my father at the time to the bushes for grazing. Taking care of the animals was my responsibility and there was no running away from it. I would return home with the sheep at about 6:00pm and go for Quranic studies until 9:00pm. I had difficulty making time to revise school materials.

Even when I wanted to spend time after 9:00pm to do some reading, my home was without electricity supply. Sometimes my parents could afford kerosine to light a hand-held lamp, other times it was too much a luxury. Sometimes, the thatch roof of my home would leak when it rained, and passing exams would be the least of my worries. To pass BECE, I would take a textbook along (sometimes a solution board to work some maths) while taking care of the sheep.

Occasionally, I would get the beating of my life from unforgiving farmers whose crops got destroyed by the sheep when I focused on reading, rather than the whereabouts of the animals. But I soldiered on, and despite my peculiar challenges, I emerged the best of my JHS for my year group. But my results was far from what I had hoped for and certainly far off the District’s best (it must have been Nurudeen Abdul-karim CA for the 2005 year group). Reflecting on this time reminds me of the extra classes Mr Abotiyire Zakariya organised for basic school students across Walewale to help them prepare for the BECE.

After a couple of weeks, he realised I had not signed up for the remedial lessons, and called me to rebuke me for not attending. Afterwards, he made me an offer – that I could attend the remedial classes free of charge. I believe that he felt I could not afford it. That was true, but really, the problem was that I was a herdsman and had no one to pass off that responsibility to. Long story short, I passed and got admitted to Business Secondary School in Tamale.

At BISCO, my electives were Financial accounting, Cost accounting, Economics, and Business Management. But in my final year, I decided I wanted to write Elective maths. As most students in the north do, I registered for the private candidate examination, substituting Cost accounting for E-maths. Till date, my proudest moment was making an A in E-maths after barely 3 months of self-tutelage. Indeed, my maths results were instrumental in gaining me admission for MSc in Economic Development.

The University of Glasgow’s admissions unit specifically demanded my secondary school results and a WASSCE results checker to enable them verify my results prior to making the admission unconditional. Anyway, what I really liked about being in boarding school was that I was free to spend my time studying rather than taking care of animals. But then again, the disadvantage of going to school far away from home was that when I completed my WASSCE exams at BiSCO , I did not have lorry fare to travel back to Walewale.

I would spend the next 2 days walking around Tamale (from BISCO to sagnarigu, and then from Sagnarigu to Sabonkudi Estates in Vittin). Thankfully, Iddrisu Ma-aruf got some money from Alhaji Barihama Iddrisu for me. But I took a taxi back to Sagnarigu and was short of the exact fare. Luckily, I met my own son Alhassan Soadiku (who was being trained as a teacher at the Bagabaga College of Education). He had no idea my predicament, but for some reason he gave me some money and that was how I got back to Walewale after secondary school.

After SHS, my mother wanted me to go to teachers’ training college. She knew she could not finance University education for me and my late father was quite elderly at the time. With a ready job after school, Teachers’ college seemed a reasonable choice. But I was acutely aware of the constraints on progression as a teacher in the Ghanaian educational system. So, I defied my mother and applied to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to pursue BSc Development Planning.

I struggled financially at KNUST, but like many others, students’ loan saved the day most of the time, except that 3-day “involuntary fasting” in my first year. I was completely broke: could not afford a meal for 3 days, yet I was so full of pride to ask a favor or borrow money from a friend. I could have easily relied on Mr Abdul Rahaman Musah and Rufai Iddrisu, but I would starve than bruise my ego. I am not proud of my pride sometimes!

Alhamdulillah, it’s been a smooth sail ever since. When I left my role for the USAID Resiliency in Northern Ghana Project for MSc here in Glasgow, my mother wasn’t happy. She didn’t understand why I was leaving a decent job to pursue further education and looking to return to an environment full of unemployed graduates. For me, setting the example that one doesn’t have to limit their educational ambitions because they are born into underprivileged backgrounds meant so much more than a stable income. Was I to relive [literally] my life, would I pursue a PhD again? WITHOUT QUESTION! – all other things staying constant.

My masters and PhD have been fully funded (thanks to the Commonwealth shared scholarships for my MSc, and University of Glasgow College of Social Sciences (CoSS) scholarship for my PhD). Getting here has been tough – no lie. I wasn’t thinking right a lot of the time in my first and second year of PhD. I contemplated quitting countless time, but here we are. It’s really these tough moments that make every pursuit worth the try. I ain’t waiting for no one to say they are proud of me. Like the agama lizard, I nod my head and say I am proud of me!

To my Bishanaayiri and Tamplungu folks, you don’t have to be exceptionally brilliant, you need only work hard, persevere, and be positive. Everything else will fall in place.

This is dedicated to the memory of my late father and my late brother Razak.

We journey on!