Ghanaian politician and educationist, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has opened up about his childhood in a rural community, revealing that unlike many children who grow up with clear ambitions, he did not have defined dreams for his future.
In an interview on The Career Trail aired on Joy Learning TV and Joy News, he disclosed that his environment offered little exposure to professions that could shape his aspirations.
“The interesting thing is that in the villages, we didn’t have that much of a dream. The only time I met a doctor was when I went to the hospital. There was no doctor from your town. When I was growing up, there was no medical doctor that I knew. I was not aspiring. I didn’t have that. When I look back, there was nothing about I wanted to be this,” he said.
He, however, recalled a defining influence from his father, who played an active role in promoting education within the community.
“When I was in class three, my dad would come home from his travels. He would go to his farm and sometimes stay for over a year, then come back to Jachie to see us,” he narrated.
“Whenever he came to Jachie, he would get permission from the head teacher and go around all the classrooms advising the children to study, using his life as an example that he didn’t get the opportunity for education, so if they have it, they should study hard,” he continued.
Dr Adutwum also shared a childhood moment that shaped his early understanding of education and possibility.
He recalled how his head teacher once described him as very bright, a message his father passed on to him in a way he could understand at the time.
“One day my dad came home and said he had spoken with my head teacher and was told I was super bright. And at the time, my head teacher mentioned something like university, but my father didn’t really understand what that meant. So he came and told me, ‘You are bright, you will go to the last school,’” he shared.
The Member of Parliament said that phrase stayed with him even though he did not fully understand what it meant at the time.
“My father telling me I was bright and that I would go to the last school is something that stayed with me, and I never forgot. I didn’t even know what the last school was, but I was happy I would go there,” he recalled.
Dr Adutwum noted that his upbringing was not shaped by career conversations or long-term ambitions, but by encouragement, discipline, and a strong belief in education instilled by his father.
He later pursued his education at Jachie Pramso Senior High School, Kumasi High School, and eventually the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, turning what began as a simple message about “the last school” into a lifelong academic journey.
