contribution of missionaries to education in ghana
West Africa owes to the Christian missionaries not only a new religious faith which has changed the beliefs and life of millions of people, but also the foundation of western education. The missions agricultural schools were especially beneficial for colonial governments considering that governments believed that manual labour was a means to prevent discontent and unrest in the tribes (Hansen 1984:232). 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 Notably among these missionaries are the Wesleyan, Basel, and Bremen. Establishment of Christian Churches In Ghana. The role of the Christian missionaries in Ghana and West Africa was not limited to the education and agricultural sectors alone. Soon after the Methodist experiment, the church Missionary Society set up their own school at Badagry. 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. student life Although there were many disagreements between European missionaries and African populations, antagonising polygamy is probably the best-documented norm conflict. By 1885, the church had spread further inland, thanks to Father Joseph Lutz who started work around Onitsha in 1886 and spread the gospel in many parts of the present day Imo and Anambra States. ASSESS THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF GHANA. Thus as early as 1823, the Roman Catholic Sisters started a clinic for the sick and for children in Banjul. While living at the Divine Word Residence in Bordentown, N.J., he often visited parishes and schools to talk about missionary work. 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. The work of the missionaries also had little success initially. Cultural deprivation is what many of us suffer from []. ABWE is also at work in countries that restrict evangelism. ), Father Auguste Moreau and Father Eugene Murat, arrived at Elmina and revived the Roman Catholic Church in Ghana. Another contribution of missionaries to the development of Ghana was their pioneering role in writing many local languages. In short, it was a very successful mission in making us little black Anglo-Saxon Protestants. This company promoted the import and export trade in Ghana. In this chapter, we shall examine how Christianity and Western-style education influenced West Africans values, attitudes and life-styles. In 1989-90, the government banned the activities of several religious organizations, including the Church. A special memorial Mass was celebrated at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra, Ghana, on Oct. 9. Shaw, Mark. In addition to promoting a monogamous lifestyle in their schools, missionaries often insisted on divorces before polygamists or their children could even enrol. House, 1967. Establishment of Christian Churches In Nigeria. 2006 - 2023 Microform Academic Publishers | Microform Academic Publishers is a division of Microform Imaging Limited (Company registered in England no. For more than a year, Ghanaian Saints continued to practice their faith in their homes. These contradictions are surprisingly absent from contemporary research. His funeral Mass was Sept. 27, followed by burial at St. Mary Cemetery at Techny. Vol. The Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican missions all made a major contribution to education in Ghana and Africa as a whole. History books tended to exaggerate in achievements of Europeans, making no reference to Africans own great past. 'In view of this idea, Mmofraturo, the first girls boarding school in Ashanti was officially . Mobility depended on the . The Akim area had about 3400 converts over 32 villages and there were about 900 children distributed in 27 Schools. 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. Missionaries travelled through dense evergreen forests, crossed rivers and climbed mountains to bring the Gospel to as many Ghanaians as they could. The Portuguese were the first to introduce the Christian faith into West Africa but following their departure from the West Coast in the mid-seventeenth century, the Christian religion survived only in Upper Guinea where a bishop was maintained in the Cape Verde Islands serving also a part of the mainland. The activities of the early Christian missionaries negatively affected the development of African traditional political institutions. The pastors of the Church Missionary Society, from Badagry and later from Sierra Leone, visited these Christian communities in Abeokuta and other towns. The Roman Catholics established their first secondary school, St Augustines, at Cape Coast in 1936. Their arrival in South Africa was aimed particularly at spreading the Word of God. Before we examine the contribution of Christian missionaries in Ghana, we need to identify the missionaries that came to Ghana. Despite the skills and opportunities mission schooling afforded, many Africans were not willing to pay the price. non-slave trade), Christianity, Civilization and Colonization. It was however in the coastal territories filled with mulattos and other European trading communities that Christianity won some of its early success. Important among these, all in Lagos, were the Baptist Academy in 1855, the C.M.S. Moreover, speaking through interpreters is a defective means of communicating ones thoughts to ones audience. His work, however, did not extend much beyond Cape Coast and the neighbouring area. Christian Religious Studies skills for his or her future role in the society (Hetherington, 1979; Davidoff, 1980; Aboagye, 1997). self help 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. %%EOF In conclusion, the converts tended to look down upon many things in their ancestral culture. 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 fact, most of the norms opposed by missionaries concerned gender relationships. In 2006, Father Burke was appointed lecturer at the newly founded Catholic University College of Ghana in Sunyani. Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries came to the Gold Coast from the 15th century. The first batch, who came out between 1804 and 1806, included pioneer missionaries like Renner and Nylander. 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. The practice of inflicting multiple wounds on the bodies of so-called spirit babies now belongs to history. The third, St Nicholas Grammar School (now Adisadel College), was founded by the Anglican Church in 1910. Thank you! The effects of work done by Bishop Ajayi Crowther, assisted by the Igbo recaptive the Rev. There were several reasons for this poor education, some intentional and some not. 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. Predominantly Muslim territory, the North received western education later than the South. 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. In addition to studying the impact of these struggles on education, we also need to understand how they influenced gender inequality. Almost all the missions in West Africa faced financial problems in the early stages of their missionary work. The expansion of the missionary movement into Africa was part of the growing conception of Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. 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. Similar developments were carried out by the missionaries in other Nigerian languages, Efik, Kanuri, Igbo, etc. All work is written to order. It is simply one of the gross evils of heathen society which, like habitual murder or slavery, must at all costs be ended. Longman Group Ltd. London and Basingstoke, 1986, Fage, J.D. They were followed by other major missionary bodies, including the Methodists and the Roman Catholics. Besides being an online tutor, Ralph is an author and expert digital marketer with proven skills in SEO content writing. 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. 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. Father Burke became director of the Divine Word Language and Cultural Centre in Ghana. Hildebrandt, Jonathan. Was this information useful? Again, the missionaries helped to pacify Africans while their rich natural resources were being plundered by the colonial government. 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). As happened in Ghana, the development of training colleges in Nigeria was slower than secondary schools, though the C. M. S. had opened the first training college at Abeokuta as far back as 1849. Their personal and family choices influenced the expansion speed of missionary education. Kalu, Ogbu. They constitute the benefits that the missionaries brought to Africa as a whole. The kingdom of God in Africa: A short history of African Christianity. First, alignment can help you communicate your . Besides education, they cared for the sick. Unsurprisingly, the level of education increased as one moved closer to the missionaries.
contribution of missionaries to education in ghana