My name is Abdul-Samad Yakubu. I am thirty years(30) old. I come from Garu in the Upper East Region of Ghana but i live in Goaso in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. I lost my father after i turned eleven. After my fathers demise, i went to live with my uncle in a small town called Sankore also in the Brong Ahafo Region. It was in this town that i completed primary school. I also had my junior high education in this very town. My uncle was and still is a peasant farmer. I spent my weekends helping him on his farms: clearing weeds and sometimes shepherding his sheep. Life around this period was pretty difficult as i had to work , sometimes under life threatening conditions to help raise the money needed to fund my education. I would not have been able to go to high school but for the fact that i won a scholarship after emerging first in my school in the Basic Education Certificate Examination i sat for in the year 2001. I entered high school on the 8th of September, 2001 and successfully completed on the 4th of July, 2004 aged eighteen (18). The high cost of university education in the country prevented me from going to the university the following year. In March 2005, i had a teaching teaching appointment in private school in Sankore where i had my basic education. i quit after just three months to take up another teaching appointment at the Ghana Education Service as the salary was much better there than what i was paid at the private school. I spent close to three years with the Ghana Education Service and again quit to accept an admission offer to pursue a diploma in basic education programme at the St. Joseph's College of Education at Bechem in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. I successfully passed out in 2011 and have since been engaged by the Ghana Education Service as a classroom teacher. I teach at a junior high school in a village called Adomakokrom located a little over two kilometres east of Goaso where i reside. Majority of folks here are farmers while a few are into petty trade. Traditional food crops like cassava, plantain, yam, cocoyam and sweet potato are cultivated on subsistence basis. The fertile nature of the land also allows for the cultivation of vegetables like cabbage, lettuce, carrot, pepper tomatoes and garden eggs. My children have big dreams: some of them want to be lawyers, others teachers, doctors, engineers while some want to auto mechanics seamsters/seamstresses etc. The journey to where i am now hasn't been an easy one, a very difficult one i must say.

I have a private school i started three years ago. The school runs on part-time basis. The subjects taught in my school are English Language, mathematics, integrated science and information and communication technology. These are all core subjects taught in junior high schools in Ghana. Pupils must pass examination in all these subjects at the 9th grade to be able to go to high school. Three years ago, two parents hired me to teach their 9th graders all the aforementioned subjects as they prepared themselves towards their final examination. The children performed very well in the examination they sat for. Recommendations of their parents led to other parents needing my services. I now have twenty-five pupils in my private school. I meet them in a structure i have constructed on all the weeek days after they close from their regular school session. Each child pays 1GHS a day to partake in lessons. Out of the fee i charge, i buy chalk, reference materials for my use during lessons, and supplementary readers to help my pupils learn to read better. The profit i make from my school business helps me pay the fees of my younger brother at the university. I am happy with the impact my business is making in the lives of these children. I can only look forward to seeing these children pass their final examination and there after achieve their individual life goals.

Many of the pupils i teach can't read well largely because they do not have reading materials to use for practice at home. I would therefore use the money to buy library books and other supplementary readers for them(pupils) . This will offer them an opportunity to practise reading at home which i think will eventually help them (pupils) become better readers. This will also help me give them the preparation they need to pass their final examination. The success of the pupils in their final examination will draw a lot more pupils to enrol in my part-time school. This will surely help me increase my profit.