History of Education in Ghana

History of Education in Ghana

Formal education in Ghana stated during the time of colonial rule. In pre-colonial times, education in Ghana was informal. Knowledge and competencies were transmitted orally and through apprenticeships. The arrival of European settlers during the 16th century brought new forms of learning; formal schools appeared, providing a book-based education. Their audience was mainly made up of local elites (mulattos, sons of local chiefs and wealthy traders) and their presence was limited to the colonial forts, long confined to the coasts.^[5] The 19th century saw the increasing influence of Great Britain over the Ghanaian territories that led to the establishment of the Gold Coast Colony in 1874. With it came a growing number of mission schools and merchant companies, the Wesleyan and the Basel missions being the most present. The Wesleyan mission stayed on the coasts with English as main language. The Basel mission expanded deeper inland and used vernacular languages as the   

EDUCATION UNDER NKRUMAH REGIME

Ghana obtained its independence in 1957. The new government of Nkrumah described education as the key to the future and announced a high level university providing an "African point of view", backed by a free universal basic education.

JJ Rawlings

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana first President)

medium of proselytizing. With the support of the British government, missions flourished in a heavily decentralized system that left considerable room for pedagogical freedom. Missions remained the main provider of formal education until independence. Under colonial rule, formal education remained the privilege of the few.

FREE CONPULSORY UNIVERSAL BASIC EDUCATION (FCUBE) IN GHANA.

 In 1961, the Education Act introduced the principle of free and compulsory primary education and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was established. As a result, the enrollment almost doubled the next year. This sudden expansion was however hard to handle; Ghana quickly fell short of trained teachers, and the quality of the curriculum (lacks in English or in Mathematics) was put into question. The fall of Nkrumah in 1966 was followed by stronger criticisms toward the expansion of education at the cost of quality. Despite the rapid increase of school infrastructures, the enrollment slowly declined until 1973. The year 1974 saw attempts of reforms. The structure primary school/Junior High School/Senior High school was created and modifying programs in order to promote more practical contents at school.

THE IMPACT OF JERRY JOHN RAWLINGS ON FCUBE

The year 1987 marked the beginning of new series of reforms: The military coup of Jerry Rawlings in 1981 had been followed by a period of relative political stability and opened the way to broader international support. The Rawlings government had gathered enough founds from numerous international organizations (including the World Bank) and countries to afford massive changes to the educational system

 Yet the promise of universal access to basic education was not fulfilled.  Vocational programs were also considered as a failure. The return to constitutional rule in 1992, though still under Rawlings government, gave a new impulse by reclaiming the duty of the state to provide a free and compulsory basic education for all. The local government Act of 1993 initiated the decentralization in education administration, by transferring power to district assemblies. The Free, Compulsory and Universal Basic Education(FCUBE) provided an action plan for the period 1996-2005, focusing on bridging the gender gap in primary-school.