While living at the Divine Word Residence in Bordentown, N.J., he often visited parishes and schools to talk about missionary work. The study traces the his tory of colonial education and the tremendous contributions of missionaries in the establishment of formal education in the region. Renewed evangelism started when the Basel (later known as Presbyterian) missionaries started work at Osu (Accra). Private Study Hugh Goldie and William Anderson. Furthermore, each denomination had differing policies on education, so standards in education fluctuated across each colony, depending on what denomination had schools in each area. The Basel and Methodist Missions, for example, introduced scientific agriculture in Ghana.
Also the missionaries set up model farms where scientific agriculture was taught and new crops were introduced for the people, to go alongside longstanding indigenous production. Longman Group Ltd. London and Basingstoke, 1986, Fage, J.D. The First Missionaries were sent as a result of a request by Major de Richelieu, Governor of Christiansborg. 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. The anti-slavery issue and the humanitarian conscience also played a vital role in stimulating European interest in Africa and gave an impetus to mission work. 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. English comprehension First, I looked at how educational outcomes depended on the distance to historical missions. Almost all the missions in West Africa faced financial problems in the early stages of their missionary work. This company promoted the import and export trade in Ghana.
In addition to promoting a monogamous lifestyle in their schools, missionaries often insisted on divorces before polygamists or their children could even enrol. Longman Nigeria Plc., 1994, Boahen, A.A. et al Tropics in West Africa History. 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. The Methodists, known as the Wesleyan Missionaries (after their founder), arrived in Freetown in 1811. Operational Christianity started 267 Years ago. 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. With the support of the Propagation of the Faith within the Vatican, whose Cardinal Secretary became Pope Gregory XVI, various Roman Catholic missionary societies were founded. 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.. This instruction in 1948 developed into the University College in Ibadan. Baker Pub Group, 1996. Indeed, most of our early nationalists were all products of mission schools. The pastors of the Church Missionary Society, from Badagry and later from Sierra Leone, visited these Christian communities in Abeokuta and other towns. The Christian missionaries have been credited with the discontinuation of some obnoxious traditional practices among Ghanaians. He was followed, three years afterwards, by the Rev. 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. He told me that that amount of money could pay for school fees for five students in secondary school in Ghana.. Soon after the start of elementary schools, the missionaries started opening higher institutions also. Disclaimer: This is an example of a student written essay.Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers. 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). They therefore set about to achieve this through introduction of formal education among the Batswana people. In addition to teaching, he served as national spiritual director of the Ghana Sacred Heart Enthronement Centre and spiritual director of the Accra Diocesan Sacred Heart Centre. In this essay on the impact of Christian missionary activities on Ghanaian society, we shall examine the role of the missionaries in the development of Ghana and the rest of Africa. Copyright 2023 ABWE. independent learning Henry Townsend who went from Sierra Leone to Badagry in 1842 in his company was the Rev Ajayi Crowther. 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. One of them, Philip Quaque, returned in 1765 as an ordained priest. Perhaps the greatest service of the missionaries was the promotion of western education and the development of vernacular literature. essay writing One method of discouraging traditional practices was to give students a fully Western education. Early missions conducted by Roman Catholics were short-lived. Their educational activities helped spread literacy and vocational skills training among Ghanaians. In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. Ghana Education Service seeks to create an enabling environment in all educational institutions and management positions that will facilitate effective teaching and learning and efficiency in the management for the attainment of the goals of the Service. While the protestant evangelical movements were gaining ground in West Africa, similar movements were being promoted by the Roman Catholic Church in Europe. 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. Your email address will not be published. Non-African Poetry In many instances, they made their converts rebel against traditional rulers and other spiritual leaders.
The first missionaries to come to Ghana were the Roman Catholic missionaries in the 15th century and the Anglican missionaries. The problems created by the white missionaries themselves arose largely from a misconception of what Africa represented. Kalu, Ogbu. Secondary Schools in the Protectorate started later, following the establishment of Bo Government Secondary School in 1906. Furthermore, they were skilled farmers that could grow cash crops to be consumed back in the mother country, such as cocoa from Ghana (Foster 1965: 153). For example, the missionaries preached against certain aspects of African culture they considered barbaric or satanic or both. Development of Education in Sierra Leone. The early African converts to Christianity, were made to abandon their ancestral culture and way of life as pagan therefore to be shunned. 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. By February 2, 1918, all Basel missionaries had been deported from the Gold Coast. 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. Four volumes of incoming correspondence marked "West Africa" on the spine. The expansion of the missionary movement into Africa was part of the growing conception of Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. The role of the Christian missionaries in Ghana and West Africa was not limited to the education and agricultural sectors alone. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. homework help James Fieldhouse, produced a Wolof Grammar in 1876. They also introduced vocational education in the country. However, accustomed to monogamy, few European missionaries were open to such arguments. The three models of Secondary education in Ghana since colonial times are the Mfantsipim School founded by the Church (mission) in 1876, Achimota School in 1927 established by the British Colonial government These contradictions are surprisingly absent from contemporary research. 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. 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. Vol. As one Eritrean student remarks, Our sisters [the Italian Sisters] would have undoubtedly taught better and more, but the Italian government in the colony did not permit Eritreans to get good instruction (T.T. university courses 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. Hundreds of believers were baptized, branches organized, and a mission established. The copies of letters received, 1890-1927, mention the plan from 1914 to gain control of future Ashanti Chiefs using education. 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. He also blogs at BloggingtotheMax.com. By the close of the nineteenth century the major Christian missionary churches had opened elementary schools in many part of southern Nigeria with an enrolment of about 74,000 by the First World War. Andreas Riis, assisted by a team of West Indian evangelists, laid the foundations of the Basel Missionary Church in the country. Again, the missionaries helped to pacify Africans while their rich natural resources were being plundered by the colonial government. "Big things have small beginnings"; so is The Presbyterian Church of 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 1902 the Methodists opened a clinic at Igbo-Ora. Among other things the regulations required that all teachers should be registered, and a minimum salary was fixed. 2018). 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. Notable among these were cocoa and coffee. 3 (2002): 555-584. In my study, I explored how colonial era conflicts and disagreements over marriage norms lastingly affected educational development. After completing that assignment, Father Burkes superiors asked him to teach English as a second language (ESL) to Divine Word missionaries who did not know the language. In December 1868 he went with his wife and child to Anum in the present-day Volta Region of Ghana. They worked tirelessly to lay a foundation for formal education The European missionaries established elementary and second-cycle institutions in the country. 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. Longman Publishing Group, 1980. Indeed, the quality of the education could be so poor that the colonial governments complained, as in the case of the Nigerian government, which complained that the secondary school graduates provided by the missions were illiterate and ignorant and therefore poorly suited to fill the lower levels of the administration (Ayandele 1966:294-5). self help 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. In the case of Ghana, like other nations, the impact . In an ironic twist, the more Africans became versed in the Bible, the more they began to challenge missionaries. church were founded in south-eastern Nigeria, the chief centres being Bonny and Brass. As happened in parts of Yorubaland in the last century, some of the Christian missionaries often engaged in local politics and took an active part in helping the colonial authorities in their wars of territorial expansion. Their greatest legacy in the field of education was the foundation which the Methodist laid for what is today the Gambia High school. In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. Listen as we explore missions, theology, and practice to help senders and goers alike. As happened in other colonial territories, the government did not show great interest in the provision of education in Ghana until the missionaries had extended their services throughout the country and had set up primary schools and a few secondary schools and training colleges. Church history, history of Christianity, religious history: some reflections on British missionary enterprise since the late eighteenth century. Church History 71, no. I will earn a commission if you follow a link to purchase a product. In the later 19th century, the immense African interior remained the principal object of the Catholic Priests, and from 1867 until his death in November 1892 Cardinal Lavigerie planned the planting of churches in Africa South of the Sahara. They impressed it upon their converts not to have anything to do with these traditional practices. 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. The Akim area had about 3400 converts over 32 villages and there were about 900 children distributed in 27 Schools. *You can also browse our support articles here >. 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
Brief History. Their records from World War One show their distance from the war and yet that it did affect .
Catholic Higher Education and Mission in Nigeria: The Contributions of For instance, the Basel Mission established Basel Mission Trading Company (UTC) in 1859. 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. Technical and vocational education had been emphasized in the education system in Ghana since the colonial era. DISCLOSURE. In Sierra Leone, among the earliest higher institutions which the C.M.S. His immigrant Irish-born parents instilled faith and a firm work ethic in their sons. The activities of the early Christian missionaries negatively affected the development of African traditional political institutions. The work of the missionaries also had little success initially. 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! Just look at the lyrics of this evangelizing song written in 1819 by Reginald Heber, a prolific English hymnist in the Anglican church. 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. We shall now turn our attention to the activities of the Christian missionaries in Ghana. Debrunner, Hans Werner. 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 Church had its strongest hold in the Senegambia area. These missionary societies laid the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church in West Africa, which lasted through to the independence period when African clergy replaced the white pastors. 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. I also matched up locations that differed in proximity to the mission stations, but otherwise had similar preconditions for educational development. For instance the scholar E.A. To apply, students simply fill out a quick form.
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. B. et al. Box 2 of the papers relating to the Society's activities in West Africa. CUP Archive, 1979. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! For the West Africans, the acceptance of Christianity meant the total rejection of most of the cherished institutions upon which their society rested. Call: +233558280780, Your email address will not be published. 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. 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. Amma Darko The original Yaba College in Lagos has grown into a polytechnic. Request Permissions. After earlier unsuccessful attempts by the missionaries Chretien Proten, Henrick Huckuff and Jacobus Capitein, the Anglican, Rev. Hastings, Adrian. He introduced the Methodist Church in Asante in 1839, and won the support of the Asante king. Third, rivalry between the various Christian denominations also contributed to the poor standards of education. 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.
Among the early Protestant evangelical societies founded in Great Britain were the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Wesleyan Missionary Society and what became known as the Presbyterian Missionary Society of the Church of Scotland. 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. Some observers have argued that the Europeans used the Christian bible to justify the practice of slavery and the slave trade. The others include the French trading posts at Grand Bassam (Ivory Coast), Assinie and Libreville in Gabon. Earlier in 1846, the Rev. They were closed down in 1852 in favour of schools opened in Lagos which, in 1851, had one time British control. Prior to the advent of western education, Ghana's traditional social structures had inbuilt opportunities for mobility. 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. Groundless fears that the converts would become contaminated with paganism led some of the Christian missionaries, notably the Presbyterians, to separate the Christians from the rest of the township.
PDF OVERVIEW OF EDUCATION IN GHANA - WikiEducator The Journal of Negro Education (JNE), a scholarly refereed journal, was founded at Howard University in 1932. Who is Mrs. Konrad in Second Class Citizen?
11 Missionary College Scholarships You Can Apply For It was not until the nineteenth century, that the new religion was really established in West Africa. Literature
Teacher Education in Ghana - SAGE Journals The school, which was established the year of independence in 1957, was a work in progress. In Nigeria, one of the lasting works of the C.M.S missionaries was the development of literature in Yoruba. Again, the missionaries persuaded Africans to abandon the practice of tribal marks. Several missionaries died at a youthful age due to the unfriendly tropical climate. The country has diverse geography, people groups, and languageswith English as the common language, and more than 11 others with state recognition. Two other training colleges opened by the missionaries, in the early days, were the Wesley College in Kumasi (1922) and the Roman Catholic Training College at Amisano, near Elmina (1931) which in 1936 moved to the campus of the newly founded secondary school, St Augustines College at Cape Coast. WhatsApp : +233204700052
Mission schools provided a steady stream of educated Africans capable of filling the lower levels of the colonial administration and operated vocational and agricultural schools (Ayandele 1966: 295; Foster 1965: 90-91; Sheffield 1973: 10-11). 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 early Christian missions concentrated their activities not only on religious matters. A tiny act of kindness is remembered by a young man in need. As long as the Africans could read the Bible, the missionaries were satisfied that they had had enough academic education. This conditioning was focused on norms that missionaries deemed incompatible with a Christian way of life. In 1858 the Rev. Hope Waddell of the Church of Scotland had opened a school at Duke Town, Calabar. African Drama But Annor (1989) writes that before Europeans came to colonize Africa, Africans had a way of producing artifacts. Father Burke was preceded in death by his parents and his brother John. A History of West Africa, Cambridge University Press, 1969, Fynn , J. K and R. Addo-Fening History for Senior Secondary schools. Efforts to change these norms were often aimed at women. Joseph Dunwell. This made it difficult for the early missionaries to stay in the country for long. History First, alignment can help you communicate your .
Brief History - PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF GHANA It was difficult for the European missionaries to communicate freely with the local people. Two important private schools with strong Christian influence must also be mentioned: Accra High School, founded in 1923 and Accra Academy, established in Some progressive Europeans, like the first principal of Achimota College, Rev. Preventive medicine was hardly known; the result was that epidemics of different kinds were frequent. Thus, because of the motive of proselytization, unqualified teachers, and inter-denominational rivalry, missions frequently provided poor education. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! J. C. Taylor, in these parts of southern Nigeria can still be seen today. An attempt to respond to this question informs the underlying interest for this paper, namely, to explore the extent to which these institutions, especially . Teacher training colleges in Ghana did not expand as fast as the secondary schools. Study for free with our range of university lectures! West African Senior School Certificate Examination. Their converts, for many years, were confined to the people of southern Nigerian extraction resident in the north, and to the-large non-Muslim population of the north. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004. While they frowned upon bridewealth, female genital cutting, or matrilineality, they held a special grudge against polygamy. It would be wrong, however, to blame all these ills on the Christian missionaries alone. 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. There were several reasons for this poor education, some intentional and some not. The study examines the historical foundations of Western education in Meru and factors that influenced its development. There were only bush paths, and no roads in the early times. 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). Soon after, in 1835 they moved up to Akropong on the hills in Akuapem, where the pioneer missionary the Rev. Crampton, Edmund Patrick Thurman. The practice of inflicting multiple wounds on the bodies of so-called spirit babies now belongs to history. 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.
Holy Family Artesia Bulletin,
Articles C