A generation of Ghanaians grew up with a book called Courtesy for boys and girls, given free by the state, that taught them not to throw plastic in gutters, how to eat at a table and how to treat the space around them.
President John Dramani Mahama wants that back and has spoken to the Education Minister about reintroducing civics into Ghana’s school curriculum to make it happen.
President Mahama revealed this during a question and answer session at a presidential dialogue with civil society organisations on Monday, after singling out the Volta Region for praise over the cleanliness of its towns and villages and holding it up as a standard the rest of the country had lost sight of.
He said the civics subject and the Courtesy book had done something that sanitation courts, public campaigns and government directives had all struggled to do, shaped behaviour from the inside out, at an age when it stuck.
“Catch them young,” President Mahama said. “We need to continue to do that.”
He said rapid urbanisation had hollowed out the community structures that once enforced cleanliness naturally. In a village, everyone knew everyone, and the social cost of littering was real.
In a city of eight million, that accountability disappeared and without it, people defaulted to indifference toward their surroundings.
President Mahama said existing sanitation enforcement mechanisms had also broken down, with courts set up to handle violations no longer functioning effectively because the sub-metropolitan structures meant to feed them with cases had collapsed. Intensified public education, he said, was needed immediately while the longer-term work of reshaping the curriculum took hold.
He acknowledged that Ghana had made investments in tree planting programmes in schools and was building 400 new school blocks in 2026, but said physical infrastructure could not on its own change how Ghanaians related to their environment.
That, he argued, had to be deliberately taught, and the earlier it started, the better.
Richard Aniagyei, ISD
