Ghana @50, the case of basic education

By Isabella Gyau Orhin



Ghana has come a long way in educating its children 50 years after independence.
While all will agree that a lot has been achieved over the past 50 years in terms of basic education, one can also argue that a lot remains unattained and this is what we should reflect on as a nation as we celebrate 50 years of independence and chart a new course for the future.
The first Education Ordinance in the country was passed in 1852 under Governor Stephen Hill. It was to provide for the better education of the inhabitants of Her Majesty’s forts and settlements on the Gold Coast. The ordinance failed due to the refusal of the people to bear the cost of education through the Poll Tax. Another Education Ordinance in 1882 brought two categories of primary schools in the country. “Government” and “assisted” schools. The latter were run by non-government bodies. The government policies had no influence on education in Asante and the Northern Territories until the annexation of Asante by the British in 1901, and the establishment of the Northern Territories Protectorate at about the same time.
Writing about Ghana’s education in 2004, Joe Kinsley Eyiah a then PhD student of the University Of Toronto, Canada quoted McWilliam and Kwamena-Poh (1975) as saying that it was not until the last quarter of the 19th century that Ghana began to take first steps towards a state-organized education. Before then informal systems of education had been the main way in which Ghanaian communities prepared their members for citizenship. It is interesting to note that in Ghana the first “school” was the home: the “teachers” were the parents and the elders in the family. The “curriculum” was life and learning was by observation. According to McWilliam and Kwamena-Poh, the first major purpose of such education was the inculcation of good character and good health in the young members of the community. The second was to give them adequate knowledge of their history, beliefs and culture, thus enabling them to participate fully in social life. It could be seen from the foregoing comment that the purpose of non-formal education since the beginning of the Ghanaian society has been for national development.
Mission Schools followed the Castle Schools with the arrival of the Missions in the country. The Wesleyan and Basel Missionaries established schools in Cape Coast, Dixcove, Anomabu, Accra, all along the coast and Akropong, few miles away from the coast respectively in the 1830s and 1850s.

Governor Guggisberg brought improvement to the economic, health and education sectors of the country. In 1920 he established the Educationists’ Committee which recommendations saw tremendous expansion to the education system in the Gold Coast. Later, in the 1940s under the rule of Governor Burns the desire for compulsory education for all children in the country engineered the Accelerated Development Plan for Education in Ghana. This was to be given a big attention in post-independent Ghana under the Premiership of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. (see the Accelerated Development Plan for Education, Accra, 1951).According to Eyiah, The rapid development notwithstanding education practices in northern Ghana present one of the many education inequalities and disparities of the system of education that the country inherited from the colonial powers. Educational development in the north is very recent compared to the south. In addition, people in northern Ghana are underserved by the nation’s educational system. The area has few schools when compared to number of children of school going age. The northern area also has high pupil to teacher ratio, most of the teachers who are recruited lack pre-service training, and the state of school infrastructure in that part of the country is comparatively poor.
Eyiah continues that after Ghana attained independence from British Colonial rule on March 6, 1957 education became a high priority on the government’s agenda. There were policies on free compulsory basic education, free textbooks for all students and, the creation of local education authorities with responsibilities for buildings, equipment and maintenance grants for primary schools there was a dramatic increase in the number of elementary and secondary schools during the regime of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah which was overthrown in a military coup in 1966.Though a new education committee under Professor Kwapong was appointed immediately after the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to fix the weakness in Ghana’s education, at the close of the 1970s, Ghana’s education could only be described as “decayed” and needed organic rejuvenation. The decay was a result of political instability with its resulting poor management, corruption, and general macroeconomic turmoil According to Eyiah’s analysis, by the 1980s, Ghana’s education system had become dysfunctional. Serious challenges confronted it. In 1988, the military government of Jerry John Rawlings implemented broad reforms that touched all levels of the education system and attempted to address the recurring issues affecting the system. The reforms reduced pre-university education in the country from 17 years to 12 years (six years of primary, three years of junior secondary-JSS and three years of senior secondary-SSS education). There was also national literacy campaign through non-formal education for school drop-outs and adult learners. The civilian government of Ghana under President J.J. Rawlings in 1996 implemented the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (fCUBE). This was specially designed to focus on basic education access and quality through improving the quality of teaching and learning, efficiency in management and, increasing access and local participation.Since President John Kufuor took over the reins of the country in January 2001, a lot of programmes have been introduced. These include the capitation grant, the school feeding programme among others which have improved enrolment at the basic level to about 16 percent.
However improvement is rather on the low side.
Many graduates of such institutions have low literary skills.
While some have blamed this on lack of logistics, others lay it at the doorstep of government taking over missionary schools that were instilling discipline and moral education into children at the time.
Writing about his mission school over 30 year in a BBC report titled “Moralising education in Ghana,” ace Ghanaian Journalist Kwaku Sakyi-Addo praised the Aburi Boys school which was a Presbyterian boarding school where he enrolled at the age of 10.
Sakyi-Addo says the training he had build his character and his skills.
“The teacher's essential tool was the rod. We could not allow our minds to wander. We had to focus,” adding, “Poor academic work was simply not tolerated. It was dealt with in a Spartan manner, we had to be bright or we were sorry. There was no third way.”
He further said that rudeness was crushed mercilessly; insubordination met with serious consequences, and truants were treated to "shock and awe", long before Donald Rumsfeld conceived of its efficacy.
“As for stealing, the authorities bombed and deleted the entire concept out of our frame of reference. We just didn't go there,” Sakyi-Addo narrated of his basic education.
According to him, Aburi Boys wasn't an exception.
The school and the educational system at the time reflected that stern Biblical paradigm of proper child rearing: "spare the rod, and spoil the child".
“After all, the churches ran most of the schools. Indeed, until the government took over the missionary schools that were largely what the Ghanaian society knew as the appropriate method of bringing up a disciplined and well-rounded child.
There were other values which Sakyi-Addo believed complemented the education system.
“Back then, in small towns and villages across Ghana, every child was every adult's responsibility. Any adult had the unspoken mandate to discipline any child whom they found behaving badly in public.”

Civil society groups are constantly reminding the government of its mandate to provide equitable education for all. Article 38(2) of the 1992
Constitution of the Republic of Ghana says “all persons….the right to equal educational opportunities and facilities”.

To achieve this right, the constitution provides that basic education shall be free, compulsory and available to all.
According to the Ghana national Education Coalition Campaign (GNECC) chaired by the Integrated Social Development Centre, (ISODEC) the stark reality, ten years after the launch of the FCUBE programme, is that the goal of universal coverage and free basic education remain implausible.

Indeed the report of the Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (CWIQ)
for 2003 showed high drop-out rates at the basic level of education.

According to the report, 25% of children between ages 6-17 dropped out of school because of the cost of education.
This obviously has dire implications for the achievement of the Millennium Development
Goal (MDG) on education, which enjoins all countries to work towards achieving universal
access to primary education by the year 2015.

Speaking at the launch of a national deworming day exercise in Accra last week, the deputy Minister for education Science and Sports Kwame Ampofo Twumasi said Ghana as a nation has committed it self to education for all.
“As a result of the good policies, we have put in place, last year we had 16 percent increase in enrolment,” he said adding, “the challenges are there but as a government we are working to achieve them.”

For Eyiah If Ghana as a country would revisit its pre-independence high standard in education then the government will have to make education a top priority and commit more resources to ensuring the rejuvenation of the country’s education system.
The World Development Report (WDR) 2006 of the World Bank says in today’s globalised world, with competition largely on the basis of skills and ideas, countries need to cultivate latent talent wherever it may reside.

The report further said while acknowledging the important equity dimension of policies for tertiary education, discussions should be devoted primarily to policies that expand access and quality of basic education
“Motivated and talented children from poorer households deserve the opportunity to excel as much as their wealthier peers,” the report said adding, “there is a case for public action to enhance equity in learning so that outcomes reflect not merely circumstances of luck, parental endowments, socio cultural environment, birth place, one dedicated teacher but genuine differences in preferences effort and talent consistent with the notion of opportunities.”
Source; Public Agenda Newspaper, Ghana