contribution of missionaries to education in ghana

One of them, Philip Quaque, returned in 1765 as an ordained priest. About the same time, the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) headed by the Rev. These missions significantly influenced the systematic educational development in the Gold Coast. mock tests Do you have a 2:1 degree or higher? Among his pioneering achievements, he arranged for three youths to be sent to England for training as evangelists. Earlier in 1846, the Rev. Father Vincent Burke SVD, 83, recipient of Ghanas Officer of the Order of Volta Award, passed away at Techny, Ill., on Sept. 21. Perhaps the greatest service of the missionaries was the promotion of western education and the development of vernacular literature. The Journal of Negro Education, 2019 Education (2002), the latest committee to work on education reforms in Ghana, recommended a critical review and approach to making teacher education relevant to the devel-opment of the country. However, the early missionaries established medical centres, at first at their mission posts, and later far and wide, to attend to the sick. It is interesting to note that this project is not a new concept. Private Study Some progressive Europeans, like the first principal of Achimota College, Rev. The others included the Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. Brief History. non-slave trade), Christianity, Civilization and Colonization. Mr. Henry Kwadwo Amoako is a Ghanaian Social Scientist, Researcher and Acclaimed Historian for over two decades. Soon after secondary schools were opened in other parts of southern Nigeria, including Bonny High School, which was taken over by government in 1904. From 1870 to 1914 the Basel Mission succeeded in extending its work from the Akwapim Ridge to Kwahu, Akim and Asante and across the Volta as far as Yendi the north in 1913. Another contribution of missionaries to the development of Ghana was their pioneering role in writing many local languages. The high temperatures coupled with high rainfall patterns in some parts of the country experienced during the daytime, made the missionaries stay indoors, which slowed down their activities. Public money was spent only on the small number of government schools, totaling nineteen when Governor Guggisberg assumed office in 1919. Then lets begin straightaway. They include Sierra Leone 1900-1933; Ghana 1903; Cape Verde 1904-1910; and St Vincent 1907-1912. The vast majority of the people of The Gambia are Moslems; but a sizeable percentage of the population, especially in and around the capital Banjul, are Christians. So why did the European missionaries come to Ghana and other parts of Africa? The study traces the his tory of colonial education and the tremendous contributions of missionaries in the establishment of formal education in the region. After an unsuccessful beginning by the society of African Missions (SMA), this missionary body moved into other territories in what is now Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria. For instance the scholar E.A. They even considered traditional drumming and African clothing as practices that were not worthy in the sight of the Lord. Their converts increased steadily in numbers until 1821 when a section broke away to form the first independent African, Christian church in West Africa, called the West Africa Methodist Church. station in 1858, it was not until 1889 that the missionaries entered Hausaland, which was predominantly Muslim. education was an important means for mission evangelization. Copyright 2003 - 2023 - UKEssays is a trading name of Business Bliss Consultants FZE, a company registered in United Arab Emirates. He moved to Techny in 2016. Development of Education in Sierra Leone. A notable example was the Asafo Company, a purely military and social organisation of the peoples of Ghana, which was condemned by the early missionaries because of its presumed connection with fetish practices. In line with this, formal education in Ghana was started by the western traders and the missionaries by the 15th century through the 18th century respectively. In Ghana, missions strategically weighted costs and benefits when choosing where to establish their churches and schools. Let's look in-depth into these scholarships. senior high school history The latter, non-academic form of education provided by the missions has stimulated much interest among scholars, who are particularly interested in the failure of many of these schools and the hypocritical government support for the schools, seeing as the import of cheap goods from the mother countries caused many vocational school graduates, such as seamstresses, to be unemployed (Ayandele 1966:296; Foster 1965:134). As they could not recruit British missionary volunteers initially, the Church Missionary Society sponsored the services of German missionaries, who were Lutherans, to come out to Sierra Leone. Again, the Wesleyan missionaries established Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast in 1876. In addition to promoting a monogamous lifestyle in their schools, missionaries often insisted on divorces before polygamists or their children could even enrol. They were followed by other major missionary bodies, including the Methodists and the Roman Catholics. All the three secondary schools in Cape Coast were mission institutions. The pastors of the Church Missionary Society, from Badagry and later from Sierra Leone, visited these Christian communities in Abeokuta and other towns. However, as Jonathan Miran (2002) argues in his work on the roles of missionaries and the Italian state in Eritrean education, missionaries should not be held solely accountable for the poor standards of education. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! 517 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<2E41B338ACB2B2110A00B08D5A5CFE7F>]/Index[503 20]/Info 502 0 R/Length 86/Prev 357984/Root 504 0 R/Size 523/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream He also blogs at BloggingtotheMax.com. Copyright 2023 ABWE. After more than 20 years at Pope John XXIII School, he returned to the United States and served as parochial vicar at Blessed Sacrament-Our Lady of the Divine Shepherd in Trenton, N.J., where he lived with Father Tetteh. As a member of the Church of England, it interests me to see echoes of Christian educational efforts by organizations such as Compassion Canada in the educational efforts of the missionary branch of the Anglican Church, the Church Missionary Society, or CMS. Here you can choose which regional hub you wish to view, providing you with the most relevant information we have for your specific region. 1991. This thesis discusses and assesses contribution of Christian Missionaries to education in Meru from 1908 to 1963. Being ignorant of ones history causes one to lose part of ones identity and pride in that identity, and one is therefore more vulnerable to attacks denouncing ones culture as inferior, especially if at the same time one is being taught the noble history of another culture. New team members can be part of establishing a biblical foundation for the next generation of believers, the growth of nationally-led churches, and church planting in Ghana. For example, they preached against human sacrifice. Being ignorant of the significance of certain institutions and practices of the people of West Africa, and occasionally being misled by their over-zealous followings into wrongly interpreting the peoples heritage, the missionaries compelled pupils in their schools and docile adult converts to shun their own ancestral practices. One is led to ask, why this sudden development? The others include the French trading posts at Grand Bassam (Ivory Coast), Assinie and Libreville in Gabon. The Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican missions all made a major contribution to education in Ghana and Africa as a whole. History Your email address will not be published. But that increase was greater in monogamous societies. Christian Religious Studies Kuhne , his fellow captive and co-author joined him at the mission as a trader in cotton, an activity which was part of, and a means of, financing the mission. Establishment of Christian Churches In Nigeria. Today almost all of the population is Presbyterian, although the ancestral royal cult and many spirit cults still flourish. In short, the impact of teaching in the vernacular was more negative than positive, as it reinforced colonial rule and no doubt did very little to preserve native cultural identities, seeing as missionaries promoted European languages as superior and only used the vernacular because conversion and religious instruction were such high priorities. Now, with the burgeoning Cocoa industry, the expansion of commercial activity, the development of gold mines and the building of roads and railways disturbed the traditional lifestyle. Box 6000, Techny, IL 60082-6000. Hildebrandt, Jonathan. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs. Christianity in West Africa: The Nigerian Story. ), Father Auguste Moreau and Father Eugene Murat, arrived at Elmina and revived the Roman Catholic Church in Ghana. past questions Wm. According to the Head of the Methodist Church in Ghana, Mmofraturo was established in Kumasi, 'when it dawned on the early Wesleyan Missionaries that when the girl child was educated, she could grow up to face the challenges of the fast-changing world. churches were firmly established in several important towns, such as Abeokuta (1846), Lagos (1851), Ibadan (1853), and Oyo (1856). For instance, on 2nd October 1792, the Baptist Missionary Society was formed followed by the interdenominational London Missionary Society which was established in 1795. Instead of needing to import skilled workers such as carpenters, the mission schools provided colonial governments with workers capable of building and maintaining the colonys infrastructure and basic technology, a contribution that kept the colonies running smoothly. bible knowledge In 1950 Albert Academy was founded in Freetown; for-a long lime it was the secondary school in the Colony serving largely children from the provinces, among them were the future heads of state, Sir Milton Margai and Dr. Siaka Stevens. *You can also browse our support articles here >. Apart from the extreme south and the Horn, the interior was hardly touched by Europeans before the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century. As Ayandele points out (1966:285), the ideal of many of the missions was to make their converts live literally as the unlearned and ignorant apostles of old. This ideal, combined with the fact that many missionaries discovered that Africans with only basic education were best at spreading the Gospel, meant that missionaries were reluctant to provide higher primary or secondary education (Ayandele 1966:286). If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Even if secondary education was provided, it was often reserved for the sons of local chiefs (Oliver 1952:212; Beck 1966: 120), an elite the colonial government could then call upon to help rule the colony, a common practice in colonial Africa. I compared data on the historical locations of mission stations since 1924, in 26 sub-Saharan countries with recent education data between 2008 and 2018. Senior High School Literature This special relationship continued until 1960 when Fourah Bay became a college of the newly reconstituted University of Sierra Leone; the other constituent college located at Njala developed from a training college founded in 1920. The expansion of the missionary movement into Africa was part of the growing conception of Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. One of them, Philip Quaque, returned in 1765 as an ordained priest. ABWE is also at work in countries that restrict evangelism. cited in Miran 2002:128). Are you ready to discover the points for an essay on the contribution of the Christian mission to the social and economic development of Ghana? Vol. Following ordination, he was sent to Washington, D.C., and the Catholic University of America, where he earned a masters degree in English literature. Amma Darko Was this information useful? Four volumes of incoming correspondence marked "West Africa" on the spine. Before we examine the contribution of Christian missionaries in Ghana, we need to identify the missionaries that came to Ghana. In addition to studying the impact of these struggles on education, we also need to understand how they influenced gender inequality. Thomas Thompson, arrived in Cape Coast in 1752. endstream endobj 504 0 obj <>>>/Lang(en)/MarkInfo<>/Metadata 55 0 R/Outlines 135 0 R/Pages 498 0 R/StructTreeRoot 142 0 R/Type/Catalog/ViewerPreferences<>>> endobj 505 0 obj <>/MediaBox[0 0 612 792]/Parent 499 0 R/Resources<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageC]/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/StructParents 0/Tabs/S/Type/Page>> endobj 506 0 obj <>stream Soon after the Methodist experiment, the church Missionary Society set up their own school at Badagry. Their economic activities went beyond the development of agriculture. Meanwhile, the Scottish missionary, Mary Slessor, had established a reputation in the Cross River area as a nurse. Ayandele (1966:283), writing in the 1960s, says, By their [the missions] efforts the main languages of Nigeria have been preserved as a lasting legacy to the Ibo, Yoruba, Efik, Nupe and Hausa. However, this practice was in fact probably more due to stereotypes of African ignorance than an interest in being culturally respectful: missionaries may have believed that it would take too long to teach a superior European language to the unintelligent natives when the natives souls were in such desperate need of saving. Grammar School for Boys in 1859, St Gregorys College opened by the Catholics in 1876, Methodist Boys High School 1878 and Methodist Girls High School 1879. Just look at the lyrics of this evangelizing song written in 1819 by Reginald Heber, a prolific English hymnist in the Anglican church. History books tended to exaggerate in achievements of Europeans, making no reference to Africans own great past. While colonial administration in colonies such as Kenya attempted to some degree to provide training for Kenyans to fill the high-level positions (Sheffield 1973:86), the attempts in many cases fell short, and when the European administration left, Kenya, for instance, had few sufficiently educated replacements (Sheffield 1973:88). Another reason why the Europeans came to spread the Christian religion in Ghana was to pave their own way into eternal glory. Prior to the advent of western education, Ghana's traditional social structures had inbuilt opportunities for mobility. independent learning The missionaries opened schools further inland, and by 1880, the Wesleyan Mission had eighty -three schools. Please click this link to download the chapter. John G. Christaller (described as the Father of Twi Literature) produced a Twi grammar and dictionary, a collection of Twi proverbs, a Twi translation of the Bible as well as prayers and hymns. However, the motivation behind teaching Africans basic literacy and mathematics might not have been a cause for concern if not for the fact that the religious motivation curtailed education. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. For three years, he taught English and biblical ethics. The third, St Nicholas Grammar School (now Adisadel College), was founded by the Anglican Church in 1910. Hastings, Adrian. They also introduced vocational education in the country. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'cegastacademy_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_15',609,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-cegastacademy_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0');The European missionaries began their activities in Ghana as far back as the early fifteenth century.

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