Actor and playwright Fiifi Coleman has bemoaned Ghanaian creatives being sidelined in curriculums in local schools.

He spoke via Zoom as an audience member during the 2024 Annual Conference of the Performing Arts (ACPA), organised and hosted by the National Theatre, Accra.

“What are we doing with Ghanaian content, folklore, playwright, musicians, artists, games?” Fiifi Coleman asked.

He underlined the need to be “intentional about the things we teach our people” to give them a sense of patriotism.

He observed “many” of the materials he studied in school as a playwright “were Nigerian plays”. Meanwhile, having gone to Nigeria multiple times, he said, he noted students there studied works by their local talents and not that of Ghanaians.

“And so I keep asking myself why we are so eager to study these great [international] Africans. Why do we do so much of theirs than we do even of our own?” the movie star worried.

Fiifi Coleman asserted Ghana had equally good creatives whose works were rich and ripe for academic perusal. He advocated exploring local arts forms in local educational institutions to promote Ghanaian culture and foster national pride, while enhancing learning.

The ACPA was a two-day event. Wednesday, October 2 was an all-day conference during which policymakers, tax experts, educators, artists, and marketers, among others, engaged in discussions and reacted to questions. On Thursday, October 3, the programme climaxed with a Night of Gratitude to celebrate individuals who had contributed immensely to the growth and promotion of the arts in Ghana.

In July, Fiifi Coleman Productions brought the brand new theatre spectacle called Prison Graduates to the National Theatre.