contribution of missionaries to education in ghana
We were expected to accept the European language as the superior one, and this was reinforced throughout my school career (Abu cited in Berman 1974:536). In addition, while missionaries did run many academic primary schools, they provided little secondary education, a practice which prevented natives from becoming too educated (Ayandele 1966:286) and potentially subversive. English grammar In 1892, the Church Missionary Society opened the Iyi Enu Hospital in Onitsha which is today a leading hospital in Anambra state. Looking for a flexible role? the role of administrators, chiefs and the missions; first attempts at agricultural and industrial training; girls' education and teacher training before 1850; some chief factors in educational expansion 1850-1900; government official policy in educational expansion 1850-1900; agricultural, industrial and vernacular training 1850-1900 The country has diverse geography, people groups, and languageswith English as the common language, and more than 11 others with state recognition. 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). Under the Basel Missions Salem system, converts were separated from the traditional society. The early Christian missions concentrated their activities not only on religious matters. However, by the turn of the Nineteenth Century there was systematic efforts by churches of Christian Europe, namely: Anglicans, Methodists, and Baptists who were active in Sierra Leone and, with Presbyterians, in Nigeria, while Methodists also set up missions in Ghana, Gambia, and Dahomey. To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below: If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on UKEssays.com then please: Our academic writing and marking services can help you! The American Episcopal Evangelical (A.M.E.) Zion Church owes its foundation in Ghana to Bishop J. Bryan Small, who started work first at Keta in 1898. More women than men attend church, and the more strict churchgoers tend to be wealthier and of higher social status than less churchgoers or non-Presbyterians. The American Episcopal Evangelical (A.M.E.) Zion Church owes its foundation in Ghana to Bishop J. Bryan Small, who started work first at Keta in 1898. They constitute the benefits that the missionaries brought to Africa as a whole. Not only did mission education strengthen colonial rule, but it also weakened traditional societies and implemented poor standards of Western education. A second reason for the poor education of the mission schools was that in many cases the teachers in mission schools were unqualified as teachers, but were instead preachers by training. However, accustomed to monogamy, few European missionaries were open to such arguments. In Ghana, for instance, they persuaded their converts to reject polygamy and human sacrifice. homework help The others include the French trading posts at Grand Bassam (Ivory Coast), Assinie and Libreville in Gabon. In conclusion, the converts tended to look down upon many things in their ancestral culture. A history of Christianity in Africa: From antiquity to the present. This allowed me to estimate the impact of mission schooling directly. Within ten years the C.M.S had opened twelve more schools in what is today Cross Rivers State. THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES AND VERNACULAR LITERATURE; Another valuable contribution of the Christian missionaries in West Africa was the development of literature in the local vernaculars, this included the translation of the Bible into some of the important local languages. The missionary impact on education would have far-reaching consequences, as their creation of a weak basis of education would slow down the political and educational development of many former colonies in Africa. It included the opening up of Africa to forces of change namely commerce (legitimate commerce, i.e. Christianity reborn: the global expansion of evangelicalism in the twentieth century. A large body of studies show that missionaries had a lasting impact beyond their early years. 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. We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Yet, the relationship between European missionaries and African populations had some contradictions. English comprehension Father Burke became director of the Divine Word Language and Cultural Centre in Ghana. 1931. The resulting atmosphere of disunity enabled the European colonialists to easily achieve their goal of economic exploitation. History of the church in Africa: a survey. A large percentage of Ghanas 30 million people are nominally Christian (more than 70% as of the last census), and 28% consider themselves evangelical believers. Instruction in the Colonial School and the Wesleyan Mission schools at Cape Coast Castle was in English despite the fact that Fanti was the language of the native people. Another valuable contribution of the Christian missionaries in West Africa was the development of literature in the local vernaculars, this included the translation of the Bible into some of the important local languages. In 1925 the Governor introduced measures which helped the efforts of the missionaries. Origins, organization and effects in the development of West Africa, 3: Islam in West Africa. This Western education imparted to the Ameru by the Church of Scotland Missionaries, Consolata . Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. A short history of education in British West Africa. ), Father Auguste Moreau and Father Eugene Murat, arrived at Elmina and revived the Roman Catholic Church in Ghana. Waterville Pub. Father Burke spent more than half of his lifealmost 50 yearsin Ghana on the West Coast of Africa, said Father Edward Tetteh SVD, pastor of Blessed Sacrament-Our Lady of Divine Shepherd in Trenton, N.J. During his many years in Ghana, since he worked mostly in educational institutions, he produced excellent professionals: teachers, priests, ministers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, journalists and many others who work in different parts of the world.. Another important Catholic missionary in this area was the Irishman, Bishop Shanahan. In the field of education, however, the missionaries had to adjust their programmes to fit in with the policy of assimilation. By 1914 there were barely thirty schools in that vast area. They were replaced in Sierra Leone by the Holy Ghost Fathers in 1864, who made converts in large numbers not only among the pagans but also among the members of the then competing Christian churches. Furthermore, mission schools discouraged traditional ways of life outside of the classroom. Efforts to change these norms were often aimed at women. In the Gambia, as happened in other territories, the Christian missionaries did not confine their work to the spread of the Gospel alone. 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. Frank Ogodo Ogbeche Wm. Development of Education in Sierra Leone. Missionaries and the intellectual history of Africa: a historical survey. Itinerario 7, no. The blessings which Christianity has brought to West Africa are many. The Christian missionaries have been credited with the discontinuation of some obnoxious traditional practices among Ghanaians. All work is written to order. The Basel and Methodist Missions, for example, introduced scientific agriculture in Ghana. But despite the work of Portuguese missionaries based on the island of Sao Tome and later of Spanish missionaries in Benin, it was not until the nineteenth century that the Christian religion was firmly established in Nigeria. They worked to write the bible, dictionaries and textbooks in such Ghanaian Languages as Ewe, Fanti, Ga and Twi. 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. So why did the European missionaries come to Ghana and other parts of Africa? The Christian missionaries of different missionary societies made a tremendous contribution to education in South Africa. One Liberian student recalls that we were taught to dress properly, to eat properly, to speak properly. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004. This box contains: the correspondence of Bishop See thematic groupings of our digital collections, See all of our digital collections in one place, Ghana in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1886-1951, Copies of letters received, 1890-1927; West Africa, vol. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com. Longman Publishing Group, 1980. The Committee for Women's Work was responsible for the education of native girls. In this chapter, we shall examine how Christianity and Western-style education influenced West Africans values, attitudes and life-styles. Therefore the period for the rise of Christianizing Missions in the late Nineteenth Century has been considered as reprise. The reservation of high-level positions in the colonial administrations for Europeans and the corresponding mission education that provided education fit only for lower positions meant that the withdrawal of European rule could cause serious political instability in the newly independent colonies. Father Burke, whose students included Father Tetteh and Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, arrived in Ghana, West Africa, in 1963, only four years after the country gained independence from Great Britain. Today, local communities and ethnic groups that were more exposed to mission schools, still achieve higher levels of education, when compared to communities where there were no schools. Besides, the missionaries had to travel longer distances to inland towns from their southern stations. These new movements considered such ventures to be their contribution to Europes reparation for centuries of exploitation of Africans, reparation for the centuries of exploitation which the Trans Atlantic slave trade had caused to African society. Support earthquake relief and outreach efforts, biblical foundation for the next generation of believers. Joseph Dunwell. The study traces the his tory of colonial education and the tremendous contributions of missionaries in the establishment of formal education in the region. Young Vincent began his studies with the Society of the Divine Word at Divine Word Seminary at Miramar in Massachusetts in 1947. 2 (1983): 116-143. The Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican missions all made a major contribution to education in Ghana and Africa as a whole. The governor had observed the bad moral life of the Europeans in the fort. 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). Hilliard, F.H., 1957. Their luggage and other necessities had to be carried on heads and took a long time before reaching the missionaries. First, alignment can help you communicate your . Reiterating what teacher education must encapsulate, Adegoke (2003) and Benneh (2006) indi-cated that the mission of Ghana's teacher education is to pro- Technical and vocational education had been emphasized in the education system in Ghana since the colonial era. The Basel missionaries arrived on the shores of the Gold Coast in 1828 and History This finding was supported by two types of analysis. There were related organizations that sprang up in Scandinavia, Holland and the USA. Missionaries continued to be the main providers of education even after colonial powers established control during the so-called Scramble for Africa which occurred between 1884-1914. It is much easier to interact on an equal basis or even challenge the authority of another group when one is able to communicate in that groups language, instead of having to rely on an interpreter or non-verbal gestures, which undermine ones ability to show authority or express ones beliefs. Finally, education affects many other aspects of peoples lives, including economic opportunities and political attitudes. Non-African Poetry crs questions and anwers Although there were many disagreements between European missionaries and African populations, antagonising polygamy is probably the best-documented norm conflict. In Nigeria, one of the lasting works of the C.M.S missionaries was the development of literature in Yoruba. Renewed evangelisation started when the Basel (later known as Presbyterian) missionaries started work at Osu (Accra). He is survived by two brothers, Walter and Kevin Burke. Alignment is the degree of congruence between your teaching philosophy and your institution's mission. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Here you can choose which regional hub you wish to view, providing you with the most relevant information we have for your specific region. Your email address will not be published. Box 2 of the papers relating to the Society's activities in West Africa. How to Get Involved in Church Missions: The Ultimate Guide, 16 Causes of Crime Essay (with Solutions), Justify the Title of the Novel Second Class Citizen, The Role of Ghana in the Formation of the OAU, Economic Developments in Ghana Before Independence, 11 Causes of the Rise of Nationalism in Africa, Importance of the Odwira Festival in Ghana. Among his pioneering achievements, he arranged for three youths to be sent to England for training as evangelists. Up to Guggisbergs time, the church schools did not receive grants from the government. Other difficulties they faced were the problems of the many languages and dialects and their ignorance of the true meaning of the various cultures, beliefs, values and ways of life of the people whom they set out to convert to Christianity. Unsurprisingly, the level of education increased as one moved closer to the missionaries. House, 1967. Another missionary whose memory is revered in Nigeria was Mary Slessor, she arrived in the country in 1876, and for many years worked assiduously as a missionary nurse. Baker Pub Group, 1996. Ralph teaches English for Academic Purposes (EAP) online. For the next decade, the Church grew in Ghana at an accelerated pace. It happens that some people convert at the end of their life in order to be buried in the prestigious Presbyterian cemetery. This involved learning to read in the vernacular (Hadfield cited in Bone 1969:7). Several missionaries died at a youthful age due to the unfriendly tropical climate. Through hard work and persuasion she succeeded in stopping the practice among the people of killing twins. African prose Contribution of Christian Missionaries in Ghana, Reasons Why Christian Missionaries Came to Africa, Discontinuation of Outmoded Cultural Practices, Negative Effects of Missionary Activities, Negative Impact on Traditional Authorities, Limited Support for The Production of Local Food Crops. Some earlier scholarship on mission education has taken this as a positive impact of the missionaries. These commercial activities, therefore, made an important contribution to the economic development of Ghana. JNE sustains a commitment to a threefold mission: first, to stimulate the collection and facilitate the dissemination of facts about the education of Black people; second, to present discussions involving critical appraisals of the proposals and practices relating to the education of Black people; and third, to stimulate and sponsor investigations of issues incident to the education of Black people. hbbd```b``vd d"e ] DrI`5 d"(/ The Christian Connector Scholarship. For three years, he taught English and biblical ethics. It is one of the oldest continuously published periodicals by and about Black people. I also matched up locations that differed in proximity to the mission stations, but otherwise had similar preconditions for educational development. Some of these effects are still with us today. It was only after the Second World War that the colonial governments started to show a real interest in the promotion of formal education in West Africa. Mobility depended on the . This made it difficult for the early missionaries to stay in the country for long. senior high school government 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. Missionary, educator contributed to building independent Ghana. The others included the Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. In 1845 the C.M.S. Preventive medicine was hardly known; the result was that epidemics of different kinds were frequent. The contents of this tutorial will serve as a guide for a suitable essay on the below WAEC/WASSCE History past question. They did a lot to impact the social and economic lives of Africans. Some of the positive development outcomes of former British colonies are arguably the result of a permissive attitude towards mission schools. Series CLR. The home page of Compassion Canada is that of a stereotypical Northern charity: showing pictures of suffering children alternating with those of post-intervention, happy children. After earlier unsuccessful attempts by the missionaries Chretien Proten, Henrick Huckuff and Jacobus Capitein, the Anglican, Rev. Despite the skills and opportunities mission schooling afforded, many Africans were not willing to pay the price. I found that while educational outcomes are generally better in places that were exposed to Christian missions in the colonial era, traditionally polygamous societies benefited less. In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. The first school in Nigeria was started by the Methodist missionaries at Badagry in 1842. Four volumes of incoming correspondence marked "West Africa" on the spine. And yet this was what earlier missionaries in pagan Europe had done when, for example, they had changed the Sabbath to suit the pagan Sun Day (hence Sunday), and had also adopted the dates of the pagan festivals to celebrate Christmas Day and the Easter festival.
