Shooting’ where the Ducks are? A tale of Cultural Promiscuity and Ideological Dissonance associated with Ghana’s Curriculum Policy making

Abstract

Education in Ghana predates the arrival of Europeans in the Gold Coast, as indigenous system of education which incorporated authentic and indigenous values to impact social organization existed. Traditional education was therefore an integrated phenomenon, which combined physical character training with intellectual and human capital development. Educational practice has since changed fundamentally, and it provides the raison d’etre for the major assumption of this paper - the idea that education policy, and especially curriculum policy, should be examined within a specific location before modest attempts at generalisation are made. This paper focuses mainly on Ghana’s education provision in the contexts of colonisation, and the more recent trends with the movements of global forces of education under globalism. This connotes that Ghana’s education policies have for a long time been devolved from supra-state institutions to either the Ministry of Education or Parliament, and as a result greater priority is given to global/international than national curriculum. Consequently, the central question for education delivery in regard to ‘what knowledge is of most worth?’ has largely been ignored in Ghana and not given urgent attention. Policy makers, other decision-makers, and educationists, have tended to look backwards to justify the curriculum design in terms of global tradition rather than focusing it on fundamental epistemological enquiry based on culture and national needs. Whenever policy makers attempt to address this question, the answer has almost always been due to social pressure of a global, political or economic kind. These kinds of social change have tended to be more significant than changes in ideas or educational theory and practice. The paper therefore concludes with an advocacy for a model of educational system that integrates cultural values as a spring board for effective social organization and national development.