Islamic Institutions of Higher Learning in Ghana: The Case of the Islamic University College

The study aimed to explore the management of performance from the perspective of rewards, which has received much attention due to the huge investments continually been put into tertiary education globally. This quantitative study argues that there is the need to determine the reward that goes with the expected performance and that, it is through the identification of rewards for a particular task that leads to an effective attainment of an equitable balance between contributions from both the employee and the organization respectively. This quantitative study used a canonical correlational method, through the use of a self-administered survey to investigate the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to performance of educational institutions of higher learning in Ghana, focusing on both academic and non-academic employees. The findings from the analysis was statistically significant in defining relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic reward practices, and that both predicted performance of academic and non-academic employee of educational institutions of higher learning in Ghana. The findings therefore emphasize that employees of educational institution of higher learning in Ghana understand that when employees are psychologically satisfied intrinsically, then a social context is created for conducive teamwork and other discretionary behaviors be achieved extrinsically, for enhanced general working conditions at the work place. Keywords: Intrinsic rewards; extrinsic rewards; education institutions; employee performance DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-32-12 Publication date: November 30 th 2020

As a cultural medium that carries emotions and values, letters have the moral education functions of implicit infiltration, continuous dialogue, and subject co construction, providing a new path for moral education in universities. This article focuses on the research of the path of integrating letters into moral education in universities, and systematically explores it from three dimensions: theoretical logic, value implications, and innovative paths. Firstly, clarify the connotation definition, theoretical support, and operational framework of letter based moral education; Secondly, analyze the compatibility and response mechanism of letter based moral education with the educational goals of universities and the growth needs of college students; Finally, it is proposed to expand the application of letters in moral education in universities, deepen the understanding of the spirit of letters among educational objects, innovate the means of applying letters in moral education in universities, and provide a sustainable, in-depth, and promotable practical paradigm for moral education in universities, to assist in the implementation of the fundamental task of cultivating morality and talents.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of religious education on Turkish children’s factuality judgments and reasoning processes. The participants consist of 55 young children, 25 of whom are enrolled in a public kindergarten that provides secular education and 30 in a private kindergarten that provides religious education in addition to a secular curriculum. During the study, teachers recite to each child the story about the Prophet Moses in which Moses performs a miraculous act. Following the story, the children respond to various questions designed to assess their judgments regarding the factuality of the events and the characters featured in the story and the reasoning behind their responses. The responses reveal that the majority of the children from the religious education group accept the miraculous act as a fact and explain it using religious reasoning. The study concludes that religious education effects children’s factuality judgments for religious texts.

Since the 1970s, the thought and practice of moral education in American colleges and universities have made great progress, adhering to the idea that moral education is the unshirkable social responsibility of universities and that moral development is one of the indicators of student development, a moral education system with integrity as the basic principle of moral education in colleges and universities, teaching students to get along with others as the basic goal, and cultivating civic responsibility and cooperative spirit as the core goal have been formed, and the goal of moral education has been achieved by giving full play to the role of elders and peers, encouraging students to participate in community experiences and cultivating students' moral judgment ability. Generally speaking, the concept, system and strategy of moral education in American colleges and universities provide strong reference significance for moral education in contemporary Chinese colleges and universities.

As the development of my country’s mobile Internet continues to advance in depth, its related industries have also continued to rise and especially, the short video industry has ushered in a period of rapid development. In the past, the research on short videos mostly started from the perspectives of communication, sociology, culture, etc., mainly based on the discussion of the content and communication characteristics of Douyin short videos and analyzed the origins behind its rapid development. The relevant research on moral education in colleges and universities is relatively weak. Based on the relevant sample data collected from questionnaires and interviews, this paper focuses on analyzing the impact of short videos on moral education in colleges and universities from the perspective of pedagogy. The rapid popularization and wide application of short video applications have had a huge impact on the study habits and living habits of college students. College students’ moral education educators must make good use of the short video application as a carrier, create new ideas for work, and enhance the attractiveness and influence of moral education work.

This chapter explores the strategies sub-Saharan African Muslims adopted to promote socioeconomic development after independence from colonial rule. Focusing on the transformation of Islamic education from Qur’anic schooling to more modern madrasa system, the chapter demonstrates that African Muslims used madrasa education as an alternative infrastructure for pursuing social mobility and economic advancement. During the colonial period, Muslim parents resisted secular education offered by Christian missionaries because they feared the missionaries would convert their children to Christianity. Rather, Muslim educators focused on transforming and modernizing Muslim schooling, which they called “madrasa”. At the end of colonial rule, Muslims found themselves economically and socially marginalized due to their lack of secular education, which had become the main source of employment. By the second decade of independence, madrasa education had evolved to become Anglo-Arabic or Franco Arabic schools where impoverished Muslims obtained affordable religious and secular education. The popularity of these schools, along with high cost of university education since the early 1990s, inspired the founding of private Islamic universities throughout Africa. These universities offer courses in the humanities and the sciences within an Islamic environment, and admit qualified male and female students from impoverished households regardless of religious background. Madrasa schooling thus served as an indispensable path to progress for many sub-Saharan African Muslims during the independence era.

Since mid-March 2020, educational systems worldwide and particularly Ghana were under increasing pressure to use the new Digital Technologies (DTs) and mobile applications (apps) to assist teachers in guiding students to continue with online learning activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is aimed at assessing the utilization of DTs and apps tools by students during the COVID-19 pandemic and how those technologies have affected online learning in institutions of higher education in Ghana. The researcher adopted an online survey and exploratory-based design that utilized quantitative and qualitative approaches to purposively collect data from N=784 students from three major public universities in Ghana. Also, the study applied Uses and Gratification as the theoretical basis in understanding the utilization of DTs and their possible limitations for remote learning during the peak of COVID-19 in Ghana. This study reported that the specific DMTs and mobile apps used by students in higher education for online learning are smarts phones and apps such as Class In, Zoom, Skype, and Instagram live stream. This study also revealed that Personal Learning Network (PLN) such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter were also actively used by students for remote online learning. Again, the study shows that 77.1% of students in the sampled three universities were fully aware of the DTs and apps utilized for online learning during COVID-19. Also, the findings from this study report that students in higher institutions identified unstable electricity for continuous online learning, especially for those students in rural areas, unreliable internet service, poor WiFi connections, expensive smartphones / laptops, and high cost of inter bundle as key challenges of using DMTs and mobile apps for online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, on the perceived usefulness of DTs and mobile apps among students for online learning in higher educational institutions, the findings from this study suggest that DMT’s and apps were of great benefit to students for remote online learning.

Ideological and political education in college is an important measure for college to cultivate socialist builders and successors with Chinese characteristics. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, our party and government have attached great importance to ideological and political education in college, taking it as the primary link to strengthen the ideological construction of young people. The proposal of “moral education” brought a new era of ideological and political education in college. This paper briefly expounds the connotation of “moral education”, and then the current status of ideological and political education in Chinese college, and reveals the problem of weak integration between moral and ideological and political education. Finally, this article studies the practice of ideological and political work in college from the perspective of moral education in the three levels of “knowing, executing, meaning”.

The article examines the reformist tendencies in the education system of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkestan region during the period of royal power in the late 19th – early 20th centuries and conducts a comparative analysis. The scientific work studies the reforms and innovative directions of the Turkish and Russian Turks in the field of education in the specified period. The role of the ideology of pan-Islamism was very high in the development of religious education in the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Turks, in the formation of similarities and originality between them. Religious education is considered not only a cultural bridge between peoples, but also a unifying force of the Turkic peoples. At first, pan-Islamism was a concept based on religious culture and politics, where the unification of views and positions between states was allowed, then its content changed, and it acquired an educational character, promoting religious knowledge. At first, pan-Islamism was a concept based on religious culture and politics, where the unification of views and positions between states was allowed, then its content changed, and it acquired an educational character, promoting religious knowledge. Although pan-Islamism arose from the policy of unification of Muslim peoples, it was distinguished by a high level of relations between the Turkic peoples based on religious culture and education. The difference in religious education between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Turks was small. All followed the same religion and religious direction and received education based on it. The promotion and instillation of religious knowledge by the Ottoman Empire to the Turks of Central Asia and the strengthening of the education of Russian Turks in the religious schools of the Ottoman Empire was one of the new reform movements.

Distance education in Ghana is rapidly gaining recognition as a result of the increasing demand for higher education by qualified applicants, most of whom are denied admission due to the limited space and resources. Distance education promotes cross-national, multi-disciplinary perspectives in educational practice and equips students, faculty, and administrators with resources to compete in the academic world of the 21st century. Universities in Ghana have opted for distance learning as an alternative measure to reduce congestion and help remedy student admissions to the few universities available (Dzisah, 2006). However, little is known about the trend of distance and blended learning education in Ghana. This chapter addresses the trend of distance learning and university education; distance and blended learning in Ghana; information on African Virtual University and distance education, benefits, challenges, recommended strategies of distance and blended learning programs in Ghana; and a conclusion.

BackgroundPost-industrial society faces multiple stresses and developmental risks, both environmental and biological. The issues of mental health have become more dramatic and subject to debate. The current discourse about the religiosity-mental health nexus makes the study of differences in attitudes towards mental health among children from religious and non-religious families experiencing religious and secular education significant and relevant for practice.ObjectiveWe studied the attitudes toward different spheres of life of children from Orthodox and non-religious families experiencing religious and secular education. We hypothesized differences in attitudes toward mental health by children from Orthodox families and non-religious families regardless of school choice. We expected the positive attitudes toward mental health to be greater for the children experiencing religious and secular education.DesignOur study assessed 340 primary school boys on a number of measures. The boys’ average age was 10.4 years old. The participants were divided into three groups, taking into consideration the family’s religiosity and educational characteristics.ResultsThe boys from Orthodox families had more positive attitudes toward family, life, people, their bodies, and their mental health than the boys from nonreligious families. These differences were also significant between groups of boys from religious and non-religious families experiencing secular education. The boys from religious families experiencing religious education had more positive attitudes toward their physical and mental health than the boys from religious families experiencing secular education.ConclusionPositive attitudes toward both physical and mental health are more likely to be formed within religious families.

Education, gender and Islam in China: The place of religious education in challenging and sustaining ‘undisputed traditions’ among Chinese Muslim women

In the new curriculum reform in China, moral education and values education have been defined from the angles of the integrity and conformity of curriculum functions. Accordingly, a new education concept based on complete/integral curriculum functions is established. By discussing the essences of the curriculum, the basis of moral and values education, integrated curriculum setting in instruction structure, the presence of emotional and attitudinal goals in the subject standards, and teaching methods, this text points out that this curriculum reform looks to moral and values education in schools. The reform also emphasizes and will guarantee moral and values education in schools. Finally, the article recommends to elementary and secondary schools the studies on moral education in class conducted by the Research Institute of Moral Education of Nanjing Normal University, one of the Key Bases for Humanities and Social Sciences Research for the Ministry of Education.

The relevance of the topic is determined by the significant ideological asymmetry between secular and religious popular enlightenment and education, inherited from the secular era. This asymmetry is manifested, in particular, in the secular pseudo-criticism of the religious worldview by the atheist consciousness, whose main arguments are dictated by religious ignorance or illiteracy. Taking into account the fact that post-secularism is one of the mental characteristics of the present time, it is possible to assert overcoming the bias between secular and religious public education as one of the educational tasks facing modern Russian society. The object of the research is the possibility of religious education in the context of modern secular education. The subject of the research is the specifics of theological education for students of secular universities in the framework of teaching a general education and compulsory philosophy course and creating a textbook of the same name on this academic discipline. The main research methods are pedagogical observation, comparative analysis, idealization, thought experiment, deduction, induction and conclusions by analogy. One of the main results of the work is a justification of the possibility and expediency of Orthodox education of students of secular universities in the process of studying philosophy on the basis of a textbook with an apologetic orientation and at the same time fully preserving its educational and developing potential for the formation of a general philosophical culture of personality. The field of application of the research results is pedagogical activity on religious education in the structure of secular education, the formation of an Orthodox worldview, as well as the theory and practice of teaching philosophy and other socio-humanitarian disciplines in a modern higher education institution.

College student is in the formation period of world view, view of life and sense of worth, they are very vulnerable to the surrounding environment with their strong volatility thinking; therefore, moral education in colleges is a very complicated system. Only with strengthening and stressing moral education can university place its students into useful talents in a comprehensive and harmonious development of the community. To make a real moral education can promote the harmonious overall development of students; we must adhere to the "people-oriented" in order to give full consideration and carry out moral education to the psychological characteristics and behavioral characteristics of college student under the specific circumstances. We were not only reflected people - oriented in the methods in the moral implementation process, but from the beginning of setting goals, and then refine the people-oriented moral goals and expand people - oriented moral methods according to the moral content. This is the only way to truly people-oriented, which ultimately achieve the overall development of the ultimate goal of moral education in vocational colleges.