From Wa to Harvard: The Daughter of A Ghanaian Farmer Gets Highest Degree Score At Harvard University

What men can do, women can do it better if given the opportunity—a young Ghanaian woman, Cecilia Yussif, 26, the daughter of a cattle farmer at Wa in the Upper West Region has obtained the highest degree score at Harvard University’s Business School, since it’s inception, the Onion reports.

Cecilia Yussif who couldn’t afford university education in Ghana after her SHS studies spent the first 6 months on her father’s small grain and cattle farm while her mates studied in various universities.

Later that year, with the help of an agnostic missionary from the church of FSM, she managed to secure a scholarship to further her education at the one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

But there was a problem, she needed plane tickets and some pocket money so her father sold all his cattle, including the unborn to another farmer to raise the needed funds for Cecilia’s start that autumn.

Now, Cecilia Yussif has graduated with a top enviable degree—and she says, “by now, I would have been married to some old man with 5 wives already and just be working on a cattle farm. Today, I am being called my several multi-national companies, all offering me huge incentives just to say YES to working with them.”

She added; “but I first want to go back to Ghana to see my father and then will decide on what next. I will use my first salary as a graduate to start a cattle farm for my father as my little pay back and slowly set up an education fund to help women in my community who wouldn’t be able to afford education despite being bright.”

Cecilia Yussif says African governments must take it upon themselves to ensure that women are educated beyond the low glass-ceiling on the back of scholarships to bridge the huge disparity between men and women when it comes to education.