When ethos and poverty come to school, critical and transformative approach becomes the best policy: lessons from Ghana

• In Event: Indigeneity and National Policy in Africa

Abstract

This study examines two important contexts in educating poor children in the global south: The first is Freire’s (1970) “Critical Pedagogy” that argues a true generosity commitment to pedagogy which results in positive impact on relationship with students can transform them and their world. The second is the necessity of rethinking culture and education to develop ample critical approaches to the delivery of quality education in poor communities other than allowing media, advertising, tests, and imported curricula shape procedures in the field of education (Stambach, 2012). Based on a four year pilot study in five Ghanaian villages to assist young school dropouts gain high school certificates, it became clear that when educational leaders and teachers create learning contexts and communities that address the lack of dignity, respect, and the social vacuum that poor children live with, education becomes meaningful to them. This paper will highlight some of the non-traditional approaches that were adopted and present the observations, impact, and results from the program.
The approach for this program/study emanated from literature review which prompted the idea to reach out this particular population. We also relied on ethnographic data to gain a deeper understanding of the culture and historical facts about the lives of the people and their approach to education. We used census data documents from the District Education’s statistics office duties to measure the trend of school dropouts and the levels that they occurred. Based on that information, we selected our samples of about twenty five school dropouts consisting of 15 females and 10 males. We collaborated with parents, town elders, community members, and teachers who together with the students responded to interviews and survey questions about their observations of the work that we were doing. We also had volunteers from the Institute for Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) who compiled our qualitative and quantitative data at the end of each week for analysis. Currently, all twenty five students are on track to sit for the senior high school entrance exams in 2015.
Poverty continues to be the major problem in the developing world, according to the UNICEF (2013), there are about 2.2 billion children in the world, out of this, 1 billion children live in poverty, and 750 million live in the developing world. Children who live in poverty and rural areas in the global south come to school with hungry stomachs, many come with tattered school clothes, and patched shoes. Generally children attend school or get an education to enrich their academic competence for social and economic advancement but as we observed, most of the children in the communities we studied had a different priority for coming to school: some came to school with the notion to partake in only extra curricula activities such as sports, or socialize with their friends; others saw school as an escape from backbreaking chores like farming. But interestingly, most of them believe education can get them out of poverty and help them advance socially, unfortunately majority of them drop out before they graduate. They then seek manual labor or professions elsewhere to continue a tradition established by their generations before them. (Ross, 1999). Culture denotes systems of values, beliefs and ways of knowing that guide communities of people in their daily lives (Trumbull, 2005). How then should such children be taught in schools to be successful?
As we begin to forge a humanist approach to education globally, this study will reveal that adopting critical pedagogical approach, enlisting educational leaders and teachers who will focus on righting the wrong practices in international education and transform the lives of children in poverty. Such approaches can deconstruct the endemic effects of poverty and cultural barriers that continue to dominate lives in the developing world. It is necessary to continue the discourse school failure in rural communities in the global south and understand what has not worked. The culture of education that reproduces social class does not augur well for rural communities and schools. Formulating critical approaches and learning methods that are crucial for building democracies and creating equity in the developing world can chart a new course for international educators and achieve our educational objectives of fulfilling the humanist approach to global education.

Author

• Kwame Osafo, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign