contribution of missionaries to education in ghana contribution of missionaries to education in ghana

The effects of work done by Bishop Ajayi Crowther, assisted by the Igbo recaptive the Rev. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Wm. This was a bitter pill for the Basel Mission to swallow after 19 years of devoted service in the mission field in the Gold Coast but they were not dismayed when they considered that in education and agriculture and artisan training and in the development of commerce, and medical services and concern for social welfare of the people, the name Basel by the time of expulsion of the mission from the country, had become a treasured word in the minds of the people. The Basel Mission. First, I looked at how educational outcomes depended on the distance to historical missions. 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. Establishment of Christian Churches In Ghana. Four volumes of incoming correspondence marked "West Africa" on the spine. 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. Some of these new crops were grapes coffee, mango, ginger, and olives. ), Father Auguste Moreau and Father Eugene Murat, arrived at Elmina and revived the Roman Catholic Church in Ghana. For example, they preached against human sacrifice. He was followed, three years afterwards, by the Rev. 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 Until almost the end of the colonial period education was still largely in the hands of the churches. quiz What would have happened if missionaries had not insisted on monogamy? ABWE is also at work in countries that restrict evangelism. These contradictions are surprisingly absent from contemporary research. Lewis, Donald M., ed. The European missionaries engaged in trading and other commercial activities as well. Wed love to get to know you and discuss how God is calling you. 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). In the same year as the Basel missionaries settled in Akuapem in 1835, the Wesleyan (later Methodist) Church was established at Cape Coast by the Rev. Origins, organization and effects in the development of West Africa, 3: Islam in West Africa. 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. Within ten years of Father Bergheros visit, the Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria had become so well established that it ceased to be under administration from Dahomey. He had a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. WhatsApp : +233204700052 For instance, in southern Nigeria, the CMS policy was to teach in the vernacular at the primary level, while the Roman Catholic Missions policy was to teach in English (Bassey 1991:42). PDF OVERVIEW OF EDUCATION IN GHANA - WikiEducator I well remember when he came to live with me in Trenton. In Sierra Leone, the Church Missionary Society (CMS), offshoot of the Anglican Church, was the first to become firmly established chiefly among the freed captive and freed slave settlers from Britain, Nova Scotia and other parts of the New World. 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 Christian missions also took a leading role in the campaign to end the slave trade and to suppress slavery. Their luggage and other necessities had to be carried on heads and took a long time before reaching the missionaries. 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. Its message was that of love and the universal brotherhood of mankind. History Another important Catholic missionary in this area was the Irishman, Bishop Shanahan. In 1892, the Church Missionary Society opened the Iyi Enu Hospital in Onitsha which is today a leading hospital in Anambra state. In many instances, they made their converts rebel against traditional rulers and other spiritual leaders. With the exception of the first two volumes, marked "West Africa", these items are drawn from the volumes Series CWW. Similar developments were carried out by the missionaries in other Nigerian languages, Efik, Kanuri, Igbo, etc. He is survived by two brothers, Walter and Kevin Burke. They therefore set about to achieve this through introduction of formal education among the Batswana people. Missionary Work in Ghana: The Genesis - African Research 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. For the West Africans, the acceptance of Christianity meant the total rejection of most of the cherished institutions upon which their society rested. The others include the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804, which was tasked with the responsibility of promoting the translation and printing of the Holy Bible. As founder and director at CEGAST, he has successfully coached thousands of students in English, Literature, and related subjects for major international examinations. . 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. Notably among these missionaries are the Wesleyan, Basel, and Bremen. For several years they paid attention to slave trade rather than evangelization and Christianization of the people of West-Africa. Government & Politics Establishment of Christian Churches In The Gambia. 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.. These commercial activities, therefore, made an important contribution to the economic development of Ghana. As we help existing churches become healthy through theological education, discipleship, pastoral training, and leadership development, we desire to see church-planting efforts within the local church soon follow. Thomas Birch Freeman, son of a London-based West Indian father and an English mother. homework help PDF Missions, Education and Conversion in Colonial Africa They also prescribed many taboos which, in the light of modern medical science, had no relation whatever with the illness being treated. 522 0 obj <>stream Barely ten years later, after the first missionaries arrived, the Methodists, for example, had started a station as far inland as MacCarthy Island. For the next decade, the Church grew in Ghana at an accelerated pace. essay writing Support earthquake relief and outreach efforts, biblical foundation for the next generation of believers. Their records from World War One show their distance from the war and yet that it did affect their decisions. 2: Trans-Saharan Trade. The Society of the Divine Word is the world's largest Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers who focus on missionary work. This company promoted the import and export trade in Ghana. In Nigeria, one of the lasting works of the C.M.S missionaries was the development of literature in Yoruba. The Christian missionaries of different missionary societies made a tremendous contribution to education in South Africa. They had to speak through few interpreters who did not have sufficient education to interpret correctly. This made it difficult for the early missionaries to stay in the country for long. Hope Waddell was later joined by the Rev. Born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1933, Vincent Burke was the third of Walter and Eleanor (nee McGoff) Burkes four sons. Contribution of Christian Missionaries in Ghana - Cegast Academy Of the ten largest congregations for men, the Society of the Divine Word is the fastest growing over the past 50 years. Up to Guggisbergs time, the church schools did not receive grants from the government. Who is Mrs. Konrad in Second Class Citizen? Being able to speak and write in the colonisers language was considered a privilege. First, missions saw education foremost as a means of conversion (Ayandele 1966: 286; Bassey 1991: 36; Berman 1974:527; Foster 1965:85; Sheffield 1973:11). Furthermore, missionaries, believing in the civilizing mission, attempted to disintegrate traditional society through education by choosing academic subjects, such as the histories of the Western colonial powers, that illustrated the superiority of the Western culture, as well as by teaching about the superiority of the West in non-academic matters such as hygiene. The common response among traditionally polygamous people is well illustrated by a passage in Jomo Kenyattas famous book on the Gikuyu in colonial Kenya: This [the insistence on monogamy] caused a great confusion, for the African could not understand how he could drive away his wives and children, especially in a community where motherhood is looked upon as a religious duty; the children are regarded as part and parcel, not only of the father, but of the whole clan (mbari), and without them the mbari is lost. The Committee for Women's Work was responsible for the education of native girls. The system was devoid of any cohesive national policy. At the time of its inception, however, there was no publication that systematically or comprehensively addressed the enormous problems that characterized the education of Blacks in the United States and elsewhere. A special memorial Mass was celebrated at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra, Ghana, on Oct. 9. Thank you for supporting this project. The early missionaries set up craft centres as part of their educational programmes. Europe in those days looked upon Africa as the Dark Continent with very primitive civilizations, and most Europeans refused to adapt their religion to suit the local situation. Seeing as missions in the British and Italian colonies had monopolies on education for the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, this reluctance meant that there were few secondary schools at all (Ayandele 1966:287; Beck 1966: 120). Ghana - Statistics and Church Facts | Total Church Membership S.J. Christianity in Ghana - Wikipedia 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. Rather, it denationalized and facilitated the indignity and loss of cultural identity of the Ghanaian. A large body of studies show that missionaries had a lasting impact beyond their early years. Christianity in northern Nigeria. Bamgboye & Company Press, 1976. 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. He moved to Techny in 2016. The evangelical societies founded in the Americas included the Baptist Missionary Board and the Nova Scotian Methodists, whose members went to work among the Maroons, who had settled mainly in Liberia. In the case of Ghana, like other nations, the impact . Missionary, educator contributed to building independent Ghana In fact in 1966, Father Burke led students to a victory in a national educational contest called the Ghana TV Cup. Notable among these were cocoa and coffee. The Roman Catholics established their first secondary school, St Augustines, at Cape Coast in 1936. The Basel and Methodist Missions, for example, introduced scientific agriculture in Ghana. All rights reserved. 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. Church history, history of Christianity, religious history: some reflections on British missionary enterprise since the late eighteenth century. Church History 71, no. Series CLR. Father Jean Marie Coquard, operating in and from Abeokuta for forty years, was renowned among the Egba as a priest and surgeon in the second half of the nineteenth century. 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. Disclaimer: This is an example of a student written essay.Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers. Private Study Perhaps the greatest service of the missionaries was the promotion of western education and the development of vernacular literature. NUUT Co. Ltd. Kumasi, Ghana, 2011, Baarkinado. Father Tetteh also took note of Father Burkes humility and devotion to his students. The others included the Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. In 2011 at age 77, he retired from teaching and returned to the United States. These Christian converts considered themselves to be holier than their traditional rulers and elders. Properly meant by Anglo-Saxon standards. 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. Series CLS. Besides, the missionaries had to travel longer distances to inland towns from their southern stations. 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. Instead of adapting the teachings and practices of the new religion to suit indigenous values, as it did when the same Christian religion adopted Greek, Roman, German and Anglo-Saxon native practices, the early Christian missionaries condemned totally as pagan, and to be avoided by their converts, whatever they considered strange. Debate Speech: Religion Has Failed Society, A Speech Outlining the Achievements and Problems of Your School, 7 Factors Accounting for the Shortage of Capital In West Africa, The Resurrection of Jesus According to Marks Gospel. To supplement these missionary efforts in the field of higher education, the government opened its own secondary school in Lagos in 1909, this was Kings College. Find below a list of mission schools that still exist in Ghana today. The traditions and values of the community, as well as the meaning of life, were taught to the child. The early Christian missions concentrated their activities not only on religious matters. Asuikante Gabriella Atengdem - Senior Research Assistant - University Mission education left an uneven legacy: an analysis of 26 African The resulting atmosphere of disunity enabled the European colonialists to easily achieve their goal of economic exploitation. Thomas Birch Freeman, son of a London-based West Indian father and an English mother. In the days of Portuguese contacts with Nigeria, Catholic priests had established missionary stations in Benin and the neighbourhood. Box 6000, Techny, IL 60082-6000. This is the famous Presbyterian Teacher Training College founded in 1848 at Akropong-Akwapim. Reiterating what teacher education must encapsulate, Adegoke (2003) and Benneh (2006) indi-cated that the mission of Ghana's teacher education is to pro- Call: +233558280780, Your email address will not be published. In Ghana the Presbyterians were pioneers in reducing Ga and Twi into writing. Before we examine the contribution of Christian missionaries in Ghana, we need to identify the missionaries that came to Ghana. self help Johannes Zimmermann wrote a grammar of the Ga language and translated the entire Bible and a Bible history into Ga. Then in 1874, the Rev. Andreas Riis, assisted by a team of West Indian evangelists, laid the foundations of the Basel Missionary Church in the country. A short history of education in British West Africa. J. G. Christaller produced a Twi Grammar and Dictionary. A.G. Frazer, did much to encourage the promotion of indigenous culture, but by and large the colonial authorities contributed to dwindling a good deal of our cultural heritage. The Contribution of christian missionaries to education in Meru 1908-1963. The Journal of Negro Education (JNE), a refereed scholarly periodical, was founded at Howard University in 1932 to fill the need for a scholarly journal that would identify and define the problems that characterized the education of Black people in the United States and elsewhere, provide a forum for analysis and solutions, and serve as a vehicle for sharing statistics and research on a national basis. Although it can be said that Christian missionaries benefitted Africans by bringing in the more advanced Western education to the European colonies in Africa, it is believed that the mission schools in fact had a negative impact on the native peoples. It is important to emphasize that the modern history of the Christian Mission in Africa started from the late Eighteenth Century, the Catholics had been there earlier in the first centuries of the Christian era especially during the first Portuguese adventures. life skills The story of the planting of Christianity in Nigeria would be incomplete without a mention of the Italian Roman Catholic priest, Father Berghero. His viewing and wake service took place on Sept. 26 at the chapel in the Divine Word Residence at Techny. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. Many Ghanaian communities got divided along religious lines. As negative as all these impacts of the missionaries undoubtedly were for the African pupils, the long-term consequences are arguably as serious. Despite their significant contributions to education, local language development, agriculture and the economy as a whole, the missionaries have been criticized severally. 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. Moreover, the Islamic religion was also being introduced to the southern section of the country by Muslim immigrants from the north of the colony. In the same year as the Basel missionaries settled in Akuapem 1835 the Wesleyan (later Methodist) Church was established at Cape Coast by the Rev. The practice of inflicting multiple wounds on the bodies of so-called spirit babies now belongs to history. The Basel missionaries, in particular, established experimental farms and plantations in places like Akropong. EVANGELICAL MOVEMENTS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES. 1. There were only bush paths, and no roads in the early times. Although the aim of the traders was to practice commerce Human Zoos: Untold History of Suppression, The Legend of King Ulu (Ancient Thai Folklore), The Kingdom of Saud of The Arabs (Saudi Arabia), The Wesley Brothers of Oxford University (1700s), Razia Sultan of Medieval India (786 Years Ago), The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (The Revelation), Education in Africa: The Impact of Colonialism, Why The Legendary Geneva Bible was Banned. They were closed down in 1852 in favour of schools opened in Lagos which, in 1851, had one time British control. The Basel missionaries arrived on the shores of the Gold Coast in 1828 and A special memorial Mass was celebrated at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra, Ghana, on Oct. 9. Johannes Zimmermann, for example, produced a Ga dictionary, Ga bible and grammar book. The coming of the Christian missionaries to Ghana had a positive impact on agriculture. Brief History - PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF GHANA In the Gambia, as happened in other territories, the Christian missionaries did not confine their work to the spread of the Gospel alone. Catholic Higher Education and Mission in Nigeria: The Contributions of The first school in Nigeria was started by the Methodist missionaries at Badagry in 1842. Required fields are marked *. The churches opened primary schools both in the capital and in the rural communities. 2 Longman Group Ltd. London 1974, Ampadu B.K Notes on History of Ghana for Senior High Schools. Hope Waddell started pioneering work, in 1846, in Calabar. The quest for an all-inclusive development model of Ghana and other developing nations, therefore, calls for an insight into the role and responsibilities of religion toward education. In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. "Big things have small beginnings"; so is The Presbyterian Church of Ghana. The Basel Mission, as a result of this phenomenal expansion trained many local personnel to man the new stations. Called the Iwe-Irohim, was published by the missionaries. For instance the scholar E.A. Among other missionary hospitals of long standing and reputation are those run by the Methodists at Wenkyi in the Brong-Ahafo Region, and by the Seventh Day Adventists at Kwahu Atibie in the Eastern Region. During the first half of the 19th century they targeted healthier places, with relatively lower malaria-risk, where European missionaries could survive and train local African missionaries and teachers (Jedwab et al. He worked zealously as an evangelist and schoolmaster in the Castle School until his death in 1816. senior high school crs The original Yaba College in Lagos has grown into a polytechnic. The missionary activities in Nigeria, especially their educational programs helped to whip-up the consciousness of a shared identity and helped to train a new set of elite that championed the course of nationalism and constituted a virile leadership for the young nation at independence.Click to see full answer What is missionary education?A mission school or [] But with colonial conquest and antimalarial drugs, they moved further into the continent. ASSESS THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF GHANA. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd, Bristol Archives/Universal Images Group/Getty Images, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. In traditionally monogamous societies, primary school completion increased by about eight percent, but only four percent in polygamous societies. 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. As a predominantly Roman Catholic country, France encouraged Roman Catholic missionaries right from the start of her colonial activities in West Africa. 0 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. Vol. This post may contain affiliate links. The governor had observed the bad moral life of the Europeans in the fort. Ralph teaches English for Academic Purposes (EAP) online. Technical and vocational education had been emphasized in the education system in Ghana since the colonial era. better grades The Ghana Education Decentralization Project (GEDP), launched in 2010 and ended in 2012, has increased the influence of local authorities over management . 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 training college later became part of Achimota College. For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions PDF Challenges of Technical and Vocational Education and Training and The missionaries seemed to have concentrated much of their effort on the production of export crops. Cultural deprivation is what many of us suffer from []. Specifically, it addresses the unique role of Christian missions in. senior high school economics mock tests In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. In Ghana, for instance, they persuaded their converts to reject polygamy and human sacrifice. The tropical climatic condition in the country was not favourable to the early missionaries who came to the shores of West Africa. The pastors of the Church Missionary Society, from Badagry and later from Sierra Leone, visited these Christian communities in Abeokuta and other towns. For three years, he taught English and biblical ethics. The mission schools trained Africans to be able to work as translators, messengers and office clerks for the colonial government. Mobility depended on the . For instance, the Basel Mission established Basel Mission Trading Company (UTC) in 1859. Despite the skills and opportunities mission schooling afforded, many Africans were not willing to pay the price. further studies Amidst much honest missionary activity in the country for two centuries, prosperity gospel teachers have also gained influence, and numerous indigenous cults have arisen with distinct appeal and just enough truth to create confusion and syncretism. Among his pioneering achievements, he arranged for three youths to be sent to England for training as evangelists.