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

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Ghana sits on West Africas coastline along the Gulf of Guinea, bordered by the Ivory Coast and Togo to the west and east and Burkina Faso to the north. 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). In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. An Alumnus of the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, a Journalist, Author and a Philanthropist. 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? However, the discovery of quinine and other curative medicines in the late 19th century made the history of the missionary work in West Africa a different thing altogether. Among other things the regulations required that all teachers should be registered, and a minimum salary was fixed. Find below a list of mission schools that still exist in Ghana today. Among these were the Congregation of the Holy Ghost (commonly known as the Holy Ghost Father), the Society of African Missions (SMA), the Society of Missionaries of Africa, popularly known as the White Fathers because of the white Muslim-like clothing which the Fathers wore, and the society of the Divine Word (SVD, abbreviated from its Latin name). Although most people are Presbyterians, they can also go to spirit and other cults, mostly Christian and Pentecostal movements, to find cures for disease and lack of success in this world. Moreover, mission education formed a poor foundation for future educational conditions in the former colonies. The early success of the missionaries included areas like Freetown and surrounding villages. 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. The Methodists founded Mfantsipim (1876) for boys and Wesley Girls High School (1884). 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. essay writing For instance the scholar E.A. 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. As a mission school graduate noted, local history was almost totally ignored. By using postcolonial theory as a framework for analysis, it is evident that the Western formal education introduced to the people of the Gold Coast by the Christian missionaries and the British Colonial government did not serve the indigenous population well. Another important Catholic missionary in this area was the Irishman, Bishop Shanahan. They discovered that the holy book did not clearly prescribe monogamy, and contained several examples of renowned Christian polygamists. 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. Christian Religious Studies senior high school government Several missionaries died at a youthful age due to the unfriendly tropical climate. Notably among these missionaries are the Wesleyan, Basel, and Bremen. As much as the governments liked to assign blame to the missions, they were also accountable for the poor education through their educational policies. 2018). Let's look in-depth into these scholarships. Father Vincent Burke SVD, 83, recipient of Ghanas Officer of the Order of Volta Award, passed away at Techny, Ill., on Sept. 21. It would be wrong, however, to blame all these ills on the Christian missionaries alone. A member of the CMS, Henry Venn, boasted that the mission schools of Nigeria would produce an educated African elite that could form an intelligent and influential class of society and become the founders of a Kingdom which shall render incalculable benefits to Africa (Venn cited in Bassey 1991:37). Prior to the advent of western education, Ghana's traditional social structures had inbuilt opportunities for mobility. 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. In short, it was a very successful mission in making us little black Anglo-Saxon Protestants. In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. The colonial Eritrean government ensured that native Eritreans received poor education by permitting them to only attend school up to the fourth grade (Miran 2002:127). These included the Baptist missionaries who under the American evangelist, Thomas Bowen, started work from Ogbomosho in 1855. For instance, in the Salisbury region of Rhodesia, it was reported in 1924 that no male teachers had educational qualifications (Bone 1969:28). In 1858 the Rev. faceless characters hb```,,g@( B(Pi xD r[e}v'$ImK *e()dP#jjTNl=VtN(%!30p0040tt0B GGc2m2@M``a$]x2\YkvIaB1b`h6f` (eAKPU d Hope Waddell was later joined by the Rev. Next, branches of the C.M.S. Foremost in the contribution of the early Christian missionaries to the development of Ghana is their efforts to bring Western education to Ghanaians. These trends occasionally brought kings into conflict with the missionaries and their converts. His request to the Danish Crown for missionaries was forwarded to . This post may contain affiliate links. Alignment is the degree of congruence between your teaching philosophy and your institution's mission. Amma Darko Despite their significant contributions to education, local language development, agriculture and the economy as a whole, the missionaries have been criticized severally. senior high school history Wed love to get to know you and discuss how God is calling you. A new attempt to spread Christianity was made when the Church Missionary Society (CMS) arrived from Britain in 1821. EVANGELICAL MOVEMENTS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES. S.J. CONTRIBUTION OF CHRISTIANITY TO WEST AFRICA. We shall now turn our attention to the activities of the Christian missionaries in Ghana. Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. Andreas Riis, assisted by a team of West Indian evangelists, laid the foundations of the Basel Missionary Church in the country. It offered the most direct path towards prestigious jobs in colonial administrations and European enterprises. It also plays an important role in organization of inheritances within matrilineal houses and thus exerts influence from a legal point of view. Barely ten years later, after the first missionaries arrived, the Methodists, for example, had started a station as far inland as MacCarthy Island. 4>Ofv}TMdQ! Because of rivalry, instead of building one common, multi-denominational school in a village that really only needed the one school, missionaries each built a school for their particular denomination and competed for students (Berman 1974:533). 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 traditions and values of the community, as well as the meaning of life, were taught to the child. Development of Education in Sierra Leone. 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). 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. At the end of the eighteenth century, the Evangelical Revival began to bring to Africa an influx of missionaries whose laoburs would produce the first fruits of an enduring Christian presence in Sub-Sahara Africa. 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. The greatest problem faced by the early European Christian missionaries was, the tropical climate and health Hazards. Called the Iwe-Irohim, was published by the missionaries. While the Evangelical Presbyterian missionaries were the First to develop literature in Ewe, the Roman Catholics were responsible for Nzima literature. 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. From the second half of the eighteenth century, a fervent wave of evangelical spirit developed in the United Kingdom, Europe and the New World which inspired men and women with the missionary fervour to found religious societies whose members would go out to Africa and the other lands. The effects of work done by Bishop Ajayi Crowther, assisted by the Igbo recaptive the Rev. Christianity reborn: the global expansion of evangelicalism in the twentieth century. 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. However, the early missionaries established medical centres, at first at their mission posts, and later far and wide, to attend to the sick. They relied very much on their home churches for their funds. His work, however, did not extend much beyond Cape Coast and the neighbouring area. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995. Another important missionary doctor was J. R. Stephen who for many years headed a missionary hospital at Ilesha. In 1902 the Methodists opened a clinic at Igbo-Ora. "Big things have small beginnings"; so is The Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Ghana continued to call. Joseph Dunwell. Christianity in northern Nigeria. He was followed, three years afterwards, by the Rev. In conclusion, the educational enterprise of the Christian missionaries in the British and Italian colonies of Africa during the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries was primarily negative for the African pupils. Thomas Birch Freeman, son of a London-based West Indian father and an English mother. A new era began with the settlements of Black Christians from Nova Scotia in Sierra Leone in 1787 and the missionary advance inland from Cape Town beginning with the arrival there of J. T. van der Kemp in 1799. Father Burke became director of the Divine Word Language and Cultural Centre in Ghana. Besides being an online tutor, Ralph is an author and expert digital marketer with proven skills in SEO content writing. They were followed by other major missionary bodies, including the Methodists and the Roman Catholics. We shall begin with the positive contribution of the Christian missionaries in Ghana. Upon completing his degree, Father Burke received his first assignment abroad: Ghana, the first Black sub-Saharan country in Africa to gain independence from a colonial power. Isichei, Elizabeth. senior high school economics (with Examples), Top 20 Topics in English for Academic Purposes, 7 Rules of Referencing and Citation in Academic Writing, 10 Importance of Referencing and Citation in Academic Writing, How to Get a Degree Without Going to High School, Joseph Rhodes Dunwell Methodist Missionary, 1835, Thomas Birch Freeman Methodist Missionary, 1838, Thomas Thompson Society for the Propagation of the Gospel/Anglican, 1752, Wesley Girls High School, Cape Coast Methodist missionaries, Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast Methodist, Adisadel College, Cape Coast Anglican Missionaries, Holy Child School, Cape Coast Roman Catholic, St Augustines College, Cape Coast Roman Catholic, Archbishop Potter Girls School, Takoradi, Aburi Girls Secondary School Presbyterian, St Monicas High School, Mampong Anglican. Among his pioneering achievements, he arranged for three youths to be sent to England for training as evangelists. 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). In addition to contributing to fluctuating educational standards across the colony, inter-denominational rivalry caused a disparity in access to education. Africa Christian Press, 1996. 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. It is simply one of the gross evils of heathen society which, like habitual murder or slavery, must at all costs be ended. This company promoted the import and export trade in Ghana. Father Burke was preceded in death by his parents and his brother John. 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 A history of African Christianity 1950-1975. 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. Founded in 1875 by St. Arnold Janssen, we number more than 6,000 missionaries. %%EOF Volunteers and donors to organizations such as Compassion Canada believe that they are being humanitarian when they build schools in Africa, volunteer as teachers or help in other ways to improve the quality of education in African nations, yet missionaries and colonial governments were similarly lauded as performing a great work of humanity (Beck 1966:117) and likewise believed that they were helping their African pupils. Help those suffering in Turkey and Syria. Its message was that of love and the universal brotherhood of mankind. The Basel missionaries arrived on the shores of the Gold Coast in 1828 and In 1859, the first newspaper in Yoruba. Christian missions also took a leading role in the campaign to end the slave trade and to suppress slavery. 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. In addition, the contributions of celebrity missionaries, such as Christian Schwartz, William Carey, Alexander Duff, and James . These commercial activities, therefore, made an important contribution to the economic development of Ghana. Another reason why the Europeans came to spread the Christian religion in Ghana was to pave their own way into eternal glory. 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. Their activities had both positive and negative effects on Ghanaian society. Not only did mission education strengthen colonial rule, but it also weakened traditional societies and implemented poor standards of Western education.