Decolonized Curriculum in Colonized Contexts: Assessing Ghanaian Public Schools' Role in the Decolonization Agenda

• In Event: Education in the African Diaspora: Using Postcolonial, Decolonial, and Culturally Responsive Frames

Abstract

Ghana has since independence taken steps to Africanize its education system. Sixty-years on, we ask how challenging it has been for the school curriculum to live its promise of inculcating Afrocentrism in students. Using a qualitative case study design, we researched six public schools. Data from interviews, focus groups and observations lead us to conclude that Afrocentrism inspired curriculum is in place in Ghanaian public schools. Yet, the contexts within which such curricula are implemented are themselves centers of complex interrelationships between personal faiths, institutional ideology, and school ownership/management. We draw from these to echo that curricula reforms are successful if equivalent ideological and structural reforms are implemented in the contexts within which such curriculum will be implemented.

Authors

• Richardson Addai-Mununkum, University of Education, Winneba

• Winston Kwame Abroampa, University of Education - Winneba

• Nyuiemedi Agordzo Edoh-Torgah, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana