Education in Ghana: The Genesis

The earliest history of formal, western-style education in Ghana is directly associated with the history of European activities on the Gold Coast. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive at the Guinea coast in 1471. Their intention to establish schools was expressed in imperial instructions that, in 1529, encouraged the Governor of the Portuguese Castle at Elmina to teach reading, writing, and the Catholic religion to the people. While there is no evidence to demonstrate their success, it is amply proven that Dutch, Danish, and English companies operated schools on the Gold Coast, and that instruction in reading, writing, and religious education took place within the castle walls. The best known Castle Schools on the Gold Coast included the one operated by the Dutch at the former Portuguese fortress at Elmina, the British school at Cape Coast Castle, and the Danish school at Christiansborg, near Accra. In the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, children of wealthy African merchants on the coast and relatives of some of the important local chiefs were instructed at castle schools. The historian C. K. Graham has however observed that the majority of students were mulatto children of the European castle staff and their African women. While pupils received religious instruction as part of their basic training, the primary purpose for educating young people was to prepare them for employment in the European commercial enterprises on the coast. It was, therefore, not unusual that the schools received some funding from the company secretariats overseas. For example, in his history of the Royal African Company, K. G. Davies presented evidence of company sponsorship of education in 1694 and again in 1794 through 1795. But such funding was irregular and, therefore, contributions from other sources were critical to the survival of the school system. Monthly contributions from the salaries of the European men at the Cape Coast Castle created the “Mulatto Fund,” from which some financial support for children was drawn. Also, some of the chaplains who served as teachers of the castle schools experimented with imposing fines on the European staff that missed Sunday religious services without a good excuse for doing so. The Rev. Thomas Thompson, who ministered at Cape Coast from 1752 through 1756, was reported to have depended on such revenue to support his school. Though irregular, overseas beneficiaries also sponsored the education of some African children who traveled to European centers of learning to be schooled. In a 1788 letter to the Privy Council in London, Mayor John Tarleton of Liverpool talked about the 50 or so “odd West African children, chiefly from the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone, whom parents and British traders had sent over to Liverpool to be educated.” As much as this was impressive, overseas training for African students was limited to the very few. On the other hand, the castle schools provided only basic education. Company support was limited, and often times the chaplain-turned-teacher had to resort to innovative means of fund-raising to support themselves and the schools. In comparison to the years before, the nineteenth century witnessed a redoubled effort to improve education on the Gold Coast. The Company of Merchants that took over the activities of the Royal African Company in 1752 appointed Colonel George Torrane in 1805 as its new president of the Cape Coast Castle. While it is not clear if Torrane made any recommendation for the improvement of castle education on the Gold Coast, there is information that the Company of Merchants voted money to hire one Charles Williams as master of the Cape Coast School. Mr. Williams arrived on the Gold Coast in 1815 and reopened the company school at Cape Coast the following year. Schools were also opened at Anomabo, Accra, and Dixcove, and a total of 70 students were attending classes at the facilities by 1822. To be Continued… Source: https://education.stateuniversity.com