The first female professor of finance at the University of Ghana has underscored the need for every nation to take pride in educating its children.
According to Prof. Vera Fiador, the worst pain to inflict on a child is to deny him or her the right to education.
Speaking with Roselyn Felli on Prime Morning Wednesday, Prof. Fiador indicated that she grew up in a community where the education of a girl child was rare.
When the people realised she was attending school, they were surprised and started asking questions.
“I’ve loved school, and growing up, my worst punishment was to tell me not to go to school,” she said.
The Finance Professor stated that she loved school and genuinely found joy in learning just to gobble up a lot of knowledge.
“So whilst going to school, I found that colleagues would learn because they have to, I learn because I just love to read, get new ideas, test something here and there and all that, so usually, the TV watches me while I’m reading the book.” Prof. Fiador claimed.
The academic further stated that she grew up in Jamestown, and back then as a girl, you had to give birth by the age 15, otherwise you will be classified as barren. So if girls at that age found themselves in school, the taunt was that because they could not give birth, they are going to school so that their barrenness will not come to light.
However, she said that while growing up, she aspired to be a doctor, getting her inspiration from the young doctors she used to see while walking home from school every day, but unfortunately, at secondary school, she ended up studying General Arts, pursuing French which she eventually developed love for.
Interestingly, at university the professor claimed to have dropped the French and transitioned into business courses, having been influenced by the claim from some quarters that only the “brainy” ones go to business school.
“At the time, the noise then was in fact, business was top of the list, together with law and economics, so those were the ‘sassy’ courses within the social sciences that were known,” she explained.
She said sometimes such hype has the tendency to make people pursue courses in order to show off, without it necessarily being their calling, hence such people end up performing subpar.
Professor Fiador further explained that she made it to the business school to pursue banking and finance, thus enabling her to blend the arts and science which she loved. This is in spite of her parents’ preference for her to study marketing. According to Prof. Fiador, she eventually came out with first class due to her earnest passion for banking and finance.
She therefore believes that passion should be what drives people into choosing their careers or fields of study, rather than money, because it is better to do something that one can do well, which will naturally bring money in the long run.
The professor said, “My passion was never about the money. It was about being happy, doing something that I could do well. Those were the things that drive me. So if you pursue excellence, I think the money would typically follow you.”