Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T01:28:26.832Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘It Brought Some Kind of Neatness to Mankind’: Mass Literacy, Community Development and Democracy in 1950s Asante

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Kate Skinner
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article is concerned with mass education in late colonial Ghana. The first part examines how people in the Ashanti Region interpreted and responded to a policy that was conceived in the period of power sharing between an African nationalist legislative assembly and a civil service that was still dominated by British expatriates. Literacy campaigns and related community development activities were shaped by the expectations and ideals of the Asantes who participated as learners, tutors, volunteer leaders and salaried employees. Mass education was popular partly because new skills, techniques and materials could be used to pursue older ideals about enlightenment, progress, cleanliness and good character. Government policy indicated that literacy campaigns and community development activities would help to build democracy from the grassroots, yet, in spite of its popularity, mass education remained beyond the control of elected local government. The later part of this article focuses on the small town of Kwaso in order to establish why this was so and what one local resident was able to do about it.

Cet article traite de l'enseignement de masse au Ghana à la fin de la période coloniale. Dans une première partie, il examine l'interprétation et la réponse des populations de la région Ashanti à une politique conçue au cours de la période de partage du pouvoir entre une assemblée législative nationaliste africaine et une fonction publique toujours dominée par des expatriés britanniques. Les campagnes d'alphabétisation et activités communautaires connexes étaient déterminées par les attentes et les idéaux des Ashanti qui participaient en tant qu'enseignants, tuteurs, animateurs bénévoles et salariés. L'enseignement de masse recueillait une large adhésion populaire, en partie parce qu'il permettait d'utiliser des aptitudes, des techniques et des matériels nouveaux pour servir des anciens idéaux en matière d'instruction, de progrès, de propreté et d'intégrité personnelle. La politique gouvernementale précisait que les campagnes d'alphabétisation et les activités de développement communautaire contribueraient à bâtir une démocratie de la base; pourtant, malgré sa popularité, l'enseignement de masse a toujours échappé au contrôle du gouvernement élu local. Dans sa dernière partie, l'article se concentre sur la petite ville de Kwaso pour établir les raisons à cela et s'intéresser à l'action d'un résident local en réaction.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , November 2009 , pp. 479 - 499
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abloh, F. and Ameyaw, S. (1997) ‘A historical perspective on community development’ in Campfens, H. (ed.), Community Development around the World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, Colonial Office (ACEC) (1943) ‘Mass Education in African Society’. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, Colonial Office (ACEC) (1948) ‘Education for Citizenship in Africa’. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Allman, J. and Tashjian, V. (2000) ‘I Will Not Eat Stone’: a women’s history of colonial Asante. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Allman, J. (ed.) and Kyei, T. E. (2001) Our Days Dwindle: memories of my childhood days in Asante. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Arhin, K. (1983) ‘Peasants in nineteenth-century Asante’, Current Anthropology 24 (4): 471–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, D. (1964) Politics in Ghana, 1946–1960. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Austin, D. (2005) Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: from slavery to free labour in Asante, 1807–1956. Rochester NY: Rochester University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, S. (2001) Chiefs Know Their Boundaries: essays on property, power and the past in Asante, 1896–1996. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Christaller, J. (1933 [1881]) Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Twi). Basel: Basel Evangelical Missionary Society.Google Scholar
Department of Social Welfare and Community Development (1959) ‘Community Development in Ghana’. Accra: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Drew, J., and Fry, E., with Ford, H. (1947) Village Housing in the Tropics: with special reference to West Africa. London: Lund Humphries.Google Scholar
du Sautoy, P. (1958) Community Development in Ghana. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Foster, P. (1965) Education and Social Change in Ghana. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Gold Coast, Department of Social Welfare (1951) ‘Plan for Mass Literacy and Social Welfare’. Accra: Scottish Mission Printing Depot.Google Scholar
Gold Coast, Department of Social Welfare and Community Development (1952) ‘Literacy Campaign 1952’. Accra: West African Graphic Company.Google Scholar
Gyekye, K. (1987) An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: the Akan conceptual scheme. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McCaskie, T. (1992) ‘People and animals: constru(ct)ing the Asante experience’, Africa 62 (2): 221–43.Google Scholar
McCaskie, T. (1995) State and Society in Precolonial Asante. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McCaskie, T. (2000) Asante Identities: history and modernity in an African village. Edinburgh and Bloomington IN: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, and Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Peel, J. D. Y. (1978) ‘Olaju: a Yoruba concept of development’, Journal of Development Studies 14: 139–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramseyer Memorial Presbyterian Church, Kwaso (2003) ‘Centenary Anniversary Celebration’. Privately printed.Google Scholar
Ramseyer, F. (1875) ‘Four Years in Ashantee, by the missionaries Ramseyer and Kühne’, edited by Mrs Weibrecht. London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramseyer, F. and Kühne, J. (1901) Four Years’ Captivity in Ashanti, Related in Accordance with the Diaries of the Missionaries Ramseyer and Kühne, by P. Steiner. London: S. W. Partridge and Co.Google Scholar
Read, M. (1952) ‘Some aspects of adult education’, Community Development Bulletin 3: 68–75.Google Scholar
Wilks, I. (1975) Asante in the Nineteenth Century: the structure and evolution of a political order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar