In the case of Ghana, like other nations, the impact . About us | Ghana Education Service - GES Young Vincent began his studies with the Society of the Divine Word at Divine Word Seminary at Miramar in Massachusetts in 1947. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com. That missionaries used the vernacular illustrates the fact that missionaries were principally evangelists, and that they considered their other roles, including their role as educators, as less important. Literature Moreover, it was not in the colonial powers interest for the natives to become too educated, as they might become self-reliant and could conceivably demand independence from the colonial power, so encouraging the less intellectual agricultural schools was in the governments interest. In 1876 the college became associated with Durham University in England, which awarded degrees to students of the college. Notably among these missionaries are the Wesleyan, Basel, and Bremen. crs questions and anwers While they frowned upon bridewealth, female genital cutting, or matrilineality, they held a special grudge against polygamy. During this period, difficulties encountered were different from the initial difficulties which will more related to sickness, deaths and the suspicion of indigenous people in accepting the Gospel. This hymn sums up the reasons why the Christian missionaries came to Africa and other parts of the world. Rather, it denationalized and facilitated the indignity and loss of cultural identity of the Ghanaian. The Society of the Divine Word is the world's largest Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers who focus on missionary work. Under the Basel Missions Salem system, converts were separated from the traditional society. Moreover, speaking through interpreters is a defective means of communicating ones thoughts to ones audience. In conclusion, the converts tended to look down upon many things in their ancestral culture. 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. Later that year, in recognition of his service to the Ghanaian people, President John Dramani Mahama bestowed the honor of Officer of the Order of Volta upon him. In the Gambia, the Methodist missionary and first principal of what later became known as the Gambia High School, the Rev. Containing 9,566 pages belonging to 77 documents housed in 6 volumes As outlined in the short history entitled. 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. It offered the most direct path towards prestigious jobs in colonial administrations and European enterprises. We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. The Committee for Women's Work was responsible for the education of native girls. In 1858 the Rev. However hypocritical, government support for the schools should not be surprising, considering the benefits the colonial governments stood to gain. . 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). By focusing on the African demand for education, I showed that Africans were not just passive recipients of mission schooling. For instance, the Basel Mission established the first teacher training college in Ghana. This is the famous Presbyterian Teacher Training College founded in 1848 at Akropong-Akwapim. In the Western Region, the Catholic Sisters running a hospital at Eikwe specialized in maternity cases, and like Slessor in Nigeria succeeded in stamping out the practice of killing twins at birth. The effort of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. ), Father Auguste Moreau and Father Eugene Murat, arrived at Elmina and revived the Roman Catholic Church in Ghana. In 1925 the Governor introduced measures which helped the efforts of the missionaries. The Roman Catholics established their first secondary school, St Augustines, at Cape Coast in 1936. Series CLR. Soon after, in 1835 they moved up to Akropon on the hills in Akuapem, where the pioneer missionary the Rev. In Nigeria, one of the lasting works of the C.M.S missionaries was the development of literature in Yoruba. The Presbyterians, also, opened hospitals in several parts of the country, including the one at Agogo in Asante-Akyem. The school, which was established the year of independence in 1957, was a work in progress. In fact, most of the norms opposed by missionaries concerned gender relationships. Mobility depended on the . These trends occasionally brought kings into conflict with the missionaries and their converts. The education provided in schools in early days also tended to place great emphasis on the superiority of western culture. This allowed me to estimate the impact of mission schooling directly. The activities of the early Christian missionaries negatively affected the development of African traditional political institutions. 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). 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. In line with this, formal education in Ghana was started by the western traders and the missionaries by the 15th century through the 18th century respectively. 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. Mission Statement 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. The statistical evidence suggests that education would have spread more evenly. 26. better grades Four volumes of incoming correspondence marked "West Africa" on the spine. She succeeded in stopping the killing of twins in the areas where she served. However, accustomed to monogamy, few European missionaries were open to such arguments. Similar developments were carried out by the missionaries in other Nigerian languages, Efik, Kanuri, Igbo, etc. In 1910, a prominent report of the World Missionary Conference concluded: [T]here can be no question of polygamy. They had to speak through few interpreters who did not have sufficient education to interpret correctly. Copyright 2023 ABWE. 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. After World War I was declared in 1914, the German missionaries were restricted in their movements by the British in the British colonies. It was however in the coastal territories filled with mulattos and other European trading communities that Christianity won some of its early success. 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. The first batch, who came out between 1804 and 1806, included pioneer missionaries like Renner and Nylander. Included on the website is information about the charitys programs, such as their Leadership Development Program in which participants earn a degree in their chosen field of study, and participate in Christian leadership training, enabling them to become a fully developed agent of change in their nation (Compassion Canada 2011). Lets now take a closer look at both the positive and negative impacts of the activities of the Christian missionaries in Ghana and the rest of Africa. The tropical climatic condition in the country was not favourable to the early missionaries who came to the shores of West Africa. A short history of education in British West Africa. Prior to advent of the Christian missionaries and indeed well into the pre-independence period, most sick people depended for cure upon concoction herbs and roots and barks of trees. 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). Find below a list of mission schools that still exist in Ghana today. In 1880, two Roman Catholic priests of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A. Vol. Disclaimer: This is an example of a student written essay.Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers. Missionaries and the intellectual history of Africa: a historical survey. Itinerario 7, no. He knew me as a boy [in Ghana] who washed his car and went with him when he said Mass at mission stations, yet [as an adult] he treated me as an equal, Father Tetteh said. While the Evangelical Presbyterian missionaries were the First to develop literature in Ewe, the Roman Catholics were responsible for Nzima literature. For more than a year, Ghanaian Saints continued to practice their faith in their homes. education was an important means for mission evangelization. Properly meant by Anglo-Saxon standards. Meanwhile, the Scottish missionary, Mary Slessor, had established a reputation in the Cross River area as a nurse. Do you have a 2:1 degree or higher? Further, the missionaries introduced improved methods of farming together with modern farm implements. 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. 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. Success followed the efforts of the pioneer missionaries. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995. 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. In addition to promoting a monogamous lifestyle in their schools, missionaries often insisted on divorces before polygamists or their children could even enrol. They discovered that the holy book did not clearly prescribe monogamy, and contained several examples of renowned Christian polygamists. The Wesleyan and Basel missionaries established schools in Cape Coast, Accra . Even if secondary education was provided, it was often reserved for the sons of local chiefs (Oliver 1952:212; Beck 1966: 120), an elite the colonial government could then call upon to help rule the colony, a common practice in colonial Africa. The Missionary Factor in Ghana's Development, pp.11 &135 categorically asserted that economic and social changes were brought about by the total effect of the various projects initiated by the. Its message was that of love and the universal brotherhood of mankind. Your email address will not be published. Following agitation by the people in 1934, the government opened the old Yaba Higher College and Medical School, which awarded diplomas acceptable only locally. Being ignorant of ones history causes one to lose part of ones identity and pride in that identity, and one is therefore more vulnerable to attacks denouncing ones culture as inferior, especially if at the same time one is being taught the noble history of another culture. 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. cited in Miran 2002:128). CUP Archive, 1979. 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. He introduced the Methodist Church in Asante in 1839, and won the support of the Asante king, Otumfour Nana Kweku Duah I who reigned between 25th August 1834 to 27th April 1867). senior high school economics PROBLEMS FACED BY THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES. Reiterating what teacher education must encapsulate, Adegoke (2003) and Benneh (2006) indi-cated that the mission of Ghana's teacher education is to pro- Daystar Press, 1978. He professed vows in 1953 in Conesus, N.Y., and was ordained to the priesthood in 1961 at Techny, Ill. The latter, non-academic form of education provided by the missions has stimulated much interest among scholars, who are particularly interested in the failure of many of these schools and the hypocritical government support for the schools, seeing as the import of cheap goods from the mother countries caused many vocational school graduates, such as seamstresses, to be unemployed (Ayandele 1966:296; Foster 1965:134). In 1892, the Church Missionary Society opened the Iyi Enu Hospital in Onitsha which is today a leading hospital in Anambra state. In Ghana, for instance, they persuaded their converts to reject polygamy and human sacrifice. Until almost the end of the colonial period education was still largely in the hands of the churches. 2006 - 2023 Microform Academic Publishers | Microform Academic Publishers is a division of Microform Imaging Limited (Company registered in England no. Please click this link to download the chapter. 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. Besides education, they cared for the sick. The early Christian missions concentrated their activities not only on religious matters. The high temperatures coupled with high rainfall patterns in some parts of the country experienced during the daytime, made the missionaries stay indoors, which slowed down their activities. Brief History. He worked zealously as an evangelist and schoolmaster in the Castle School until his death in 1816. Today, human sacrifice is generally frowned upon and considered an abomination. Johannes Zimmermann wrote a grammar of the Ga language, and in 1874 the Rev. 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. The pastors of the Church Missionary Society, from Badagry and later from Sierra Leone, visited these Christian communities in Abeokuta and other towns. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004. Among the first missionaries was the Rev. Mission education left an uneven legacy: an analysis of 26 African Required fields are marked *. In 1845 the C.M.S. Therefore the period for the rise of Christianizing Missions in the late Nineteenth Century has been considered as reprise. On the opposite side, the coming of the Christian missionaries brought in its wake certain negative developments like disregard for African culture and rebellion against traditional authority. We shall begin with the positive contribution of the Christian missionaries in Ghana. Both the academic and vocational forms of education the missions provided served to strengthen the rule of the colonial powers, so that the native inhabitants were second-class citizens in their own land. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. senior high school crs They did a lot to impact the social and economic lives of Africans. Missionaries travelled through dense evergreen forests, crossed rivers and climbed mountains to bring the Gospel to as many Ghanaians as they could. 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. Without denying that prior to the introduction of Christianity in West Africa the people had developed their own crafts, one must admit that it was Christian missionaries who introduced modern forms of crafts such as carpentry and masonry.