contribution of missionaries to education in ghana

Purchase a license below to view the full collection. Therefore, considering that the impact of mission education continues to have serious repercussions today, one must question whether the First World should continue to interfere in African education. The effort of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. 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. One method of discouraging traditional practices was to give students a fully Western education. Government & Politics Specifically, it addresses the unique role of Christian missions in. No plagiarism, guaranteed! The pastors of the Church Missionary Society, from Badagry and later from Sierra Leone, visited these Christian communities in Abeokuta and other towns. primarily purposed to outline the contributions of religion and education to national development in Ghana. Soon after, in 1835 they moved up to Akropon on the hills in Akuapem, where the pioneer missionary the Rev. Soon after the start of elementary schools, the missionaries started opening higher institutions also. Cookies are small, safe and secure text files that sit on your computer which we use to give you a better experience on our site and help us improve the service that we provide to you. 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. ]v#5%{,%Y{iKsZ|Cm7NismGmg_zxKYh?>bQ?ni8G.wx:qAm$ eb!^Kr$,.9Qq^|1. But with colonial conquest and antimalarial drugs, they moved further into the continent. Again, the missionaries persuaded Africans to abandon the practice of tribal marks. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. The early European Christian missionaries in West Africa experienced a number of difficulties, some arising from factors outside their control and others of their own making. Baker Pub Group, 1996. student life CUP Archive, 1979. Thus by training Africans to fill only the lower levels of the colonial administration and providing skilled workers from the vocational and agricultural schools who contributed to the economy and were less likely to question colonial rule than more educated Africans, mission schools helped to strengthen colonial rule. 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. The system was devoid of any cohesive national policy. For that matter, they rebelled against their chiefs and elders. Another important German missionary was Wilhelm Johannson, better known by the English version of his name, William Johnson, who is revered in the history of the CMS in West Africa. Although Lokoja had a small C.M.S. The Roman Catholic Sisters provided medical care in the Upper and Northern Regions of the country before the government started to provide hospitals and clinics in the regional and district headquarters. The European missionaries believed that European culture was superior to African culture. Longman Nigeria Plc., 1994, Boahen, A.A. et al Tropics in West Africa History. For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions Operational Christianity started 267 Years ago. The next major Christian missionaries to go out to Sierra Leone were the Roman Catholics. The Scottish Missionary Society had been working in Calabar, Nigeria, also a British colony adjacent to the Gold Coast and it was from the Calabar Presbyterian Church in Nigeria that a missionary was sent to take charge of the Presbyterian work in the Gold Coast after the deportations. 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. It offered the most direct path towards prestigious jobs in colonial administrations and European enterprises. Email: henrydonsco@gmail.com For instance, in Nigeria in 2006, approximately only 51.2% of primary school teachers of either gender were trained as teachers, and the enrolment rate in primary education for both genders in 2000 stood at about 62.7%, compared to 99.5% in Canada (UN Data 2010). Even when governments discouraged domestic industries, graduates of vocational schools contributed to the economy of the colonies -and therefore indirectly the mother countrys as well. Private Study Hundreds of believers were baptized, branches organized, and a mission established. The contents of this tutorial will serve as a guide for a suitable essay on the below WAEC/WASSCE History past question. The work of the missionaries also had little success initially. 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. The constant tensions between traditionalists and Christian converts often erupted into all-out conflicts. Thus missionaries, by imparting education that promoted dependence on colonial rule, arguably contributed to the political instability that continues in the present day in many former African colonies, such as Kenya and Eritrea. In short, it was a very successful mission in making us little black Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Another important Catholic missionary in this area was the Irishman, Bishop Shanahan. 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. Your email address will not be published. Kalu, Ogbu. In such asituation, provisions and other things had to be sent into the country not in large quantities as would have been desired by the missionaries. The Basel missionaries, in particular, established experimental farms and plantations in places like Akropong. The governor had observed the bad moral life of the Europeans in the fort. They were followed in turn by the Methodists and the Roman Catholics. Although there were many disagreements between European missionaries and African populations, antagonising polygamy is probably the best-documented norm conflict. Despite the skills and opportunities mission schooling afforded, many Africans were not willing to pay the price. personal development Hope Waddell started pioneering work, in 1846, in Calabar. These contradictions are surprisingly absent from contemporary research. Mission societies often expanded into territories before colonial powers did, and providing education only cost them a little more. Therefore the period for the rise of Christianizing Missions in the late Nineteenth Century has been considered as reprise. education was an important means for mission evangelization. Up to Guggisbergs time, the church schools did not receive grants from the government. Thus, despite what the images of suffering African children on websites such as that of Compassion Canada might lead one to believe, it is time for Africans to educate their own, without any interference. Missionaries and the intellectual history of Africa: a historical survey. Itinerario 7, no. Was this information useful? After World War I was declared in 1914, the German missionaries were restricted in their movements by the British in the British colonies. Among the first missionaries was the Rev. 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.. Then lets begin straightaway. When he arrived in Nkwatia-Kwahu to teach English at St. Peters Secondary School, the town had yet to benefit from electricity and running water. famous poems For example, they made our people view polygamy and puberty rites as pagan practices. 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. church were founded in south-eastern Nigeria, the chief centres being Bonny and Brass. Thomas Birch Freeman, son of a London-based West Indian father and an English mother. The Christian religion teaches the doctrine of one supreme God and is opposed to the worship of any other forms of deity. Given their priorities, it should thus come as little surprise that missions often provided poor education to the African pupils. They often attributed natural ailments to supernatural causes and resorted to mystic cults to appease the unknown spirit, before applying medicine to the sick person. For more than a year, Ghanaian Saints continued to practice their faith in their homes. Henry Townsend who went from Sierra Leone to Badagry in 1842 in his company was the Rev Ajayi Crowther. Initially,. The First Missionaries were sent as a result of a request by Major de Richelieu, Governor of Christiansborg. Babalola, E. O. Christianity in West Africa. 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. A new attempt to spread Christianity was made when the Church Missionary Society (CMS) arrived from Britain in 1821. He also blogs at BloggingtotheMax.com. began work in many parts of Africa. 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. The Christian missionaries have been credited with the discontinuation of some obnoxious traditional practices among Ghanaians. better grades In this respect the Christian religion therefore differed from the traditional religions of West Africa, which along with an acceptance of one Supreme Being worshipped a hierarchy of gods. In spite of the division, the parent Methodist missionary church played an important role in the history of Christianity in Sierra Leone. These pioneer mission schools met with a discouraging response. cited in Miran 2002:128). The Methodists founded Mfantsipim (1876) for boys and Wesley Girls High School (1884). For several years they paid attention to slave trade rather than evangelization and Christianization of the people of West-Africa. A special memorial Mass was celebrated at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra, Ghana, on Oct. 9. The positive contribution of Christian missionaries in Ghana can be felt in such areas as education, local language development, stoppage of outmoded cultural practices, agriculture and commerce. It was not until 1909 that the government opened a teacher training college and a technical school in Accra. For example, they preached against human sacrifice. Thank you for supporting this project. Registered office: Creative Tower, Fujairah, PO Box 4422, UAE. ), Father Auguste Moreau and Father Eugene Murat, arrived at Elmina and revived the Roman Catholic Church in Ghana. 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. 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. 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. Meanwhile, the Scottish missionary, Mary Slessor, had established a reputation in the Cross River area as a nurse.