He did not sit in a classroom until he was 15. Today, Billson Kettey is using a lifetime of hard-won learning to make sure Ghana’s brightest children from poor homes do not have to wait as long as he did.
Through his organisation, Academic Rescue for the Underprivileged, our founder has already helped more than 22 needy but academically gifted students gain admission into higher education. For a man who once spent his childhood days herding cattle instead of reading books, the mission is deeply personal.
A late start on a cattle ranch
Billson Kettey was born and raised on a cattle ranch in Ghana to farmer parents who never had the chance to go to school. At the age of 7, when many children are learning to read, he was put to work herding his father’s cattle.
He would spend the next eight years in the fields. It was only at 15 that he finally enrolled in the first grade, sitting among classmates who were years younger than him.
Rather than be discouraged, he worked with unusual determination. Crediting his success to diligence and the help of Jehovah God, he completed the full course of primary through high school in ten years instead of the usual fifteen.
Four countries, one calling
After high school, financial challenges put university out of reach. Instead, Kettey took a job as a research assistant in the Department of Sociology at the University of Ghana, where he worked for six years.
He then moved to Liberia and spent another six years teaching English at the Lutheran Training Institute. From there, he travelled to the United States to pursue the degrees he had long been denied.
Between 1990 and 1992, he earned an associate degree from the Borough of Manhattan Community College and a bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York. He went on to Penn State University, completing a graduate degree in English Education in 1996.
His qualifications opened doors far from home. He was employed by the Saudi Government and taught at the Institute of Public Administration and the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce in Jeddah, as well as at Taif University in Taif.
Kettey returned to the United States in 2012 and wrote his memoir, Never Ever Too Late for Education, a title that sums up his own story. He later relocated from New York to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he taught World Literature I and English Composition II at Shorter College from 2015 to September 2021.
Turning his story into someone else’s opportunity
After decades of teaching on three continents, Kettey has turned his attention back to Ghana. Academic Rescue for the Underprivileged is built on a conviction he learnt first-hand: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
The organisation identifies students who show strong academic ability but whose families, often living in abject poverty, cannot afford to keep them in school. It then supports them to continue their education and progress to tertiary level.
So far, more than 22 students have made it into higher education with the foundation’s help. Each of them represents a young person who might otherwise have left school early, just as poverty once kept a young herdsman out of the classroom until he was 15.
For Kettey, the work closes a circle. The boy who had no school to go to became a researcher, a teacher and a university lecturer. Now he is determined that no gifted child in Ghana should have to wait half a lifetime, as he did, for the chance to learn.
Join the mission
Every student we support is a future teacher, doctor, engineer or leader for Ghana.
You can help us reach the next brilliant child who is at risk of leaving school.