Educational Access "With Strings Attached": Exploring the Role of Religion in Promoting Educational Inequity

• In Event: 41.051 - Protecting Our Future, Creating Opportunities for Children to Learn

Abstract

Literature is replete with reports of missions contributing immensely towards bridging the gap between access and provision of education. However, little work has examined religious practices that exist in such mission sponsored schools and their contribution to inequity in educational access. Using a qualitative case study which employed interviews, observations and focus groups, I examined the experiences of religious minorities in pseudo-religious public schools in Ghana. I observed that such schools make students into a captive audience to religious instruction, thereby encouraging students to adopt less honorable tactics, and falsifying behavior, in order to peaceably access public education. If schools in Africa are to remain this religious, we stand the risk of denying students their rightful access to public education.

Author

• Richardson Addai-Mununkum, University of Education, Winneba