Thursday night we said goodbye to our host teachers at a dinner hosted by the Wesley Girls Headmistress. Ironically, she was not able to attend as she was unexpectedly called to Accra for a meeting at the Ministry of Education, along with other heads of Christian schools. Unlike our system, all secondary schools, including parochial schools, are funded and administrated by the national government and subject to its policies. The issue at hand is that Muslim leaders wish to construct mosques on the grounds of the Christian boarding schools and ensure that Muslim students are able to practice their religion freely and not be compelled to participate in activities such as morning devotions and religion classes. Wesley Girls is a Methodist school and Christian faith and teaching is integrated into all aspects of the girls' education. The leaders of the Christian schools are adamantly opposed to this proposal and do not believe it will be implemented. Ghana's population is estimated to be 70% Christian, 17% Muslim and 9% followers of traditional religions. (Many Ghanaians maintain some elements of their traditional belief system in combination with Christianity or Islam.) Up to this point in its history as an independent state, Ghana has experienced very little interfaith conflict, which is not to say that people do not have their prejudices. The teachers expressed concern about the potential for conflict, based on what they are seeing in neighboring West African countries such as Nigeria.
In Ghana, education is free and compulsory through Junior Secondary School. At the end of Junior Secondary School students take an exam to qualify for Senior Secondary School (Grades 9-12, referred to as Forms 1-4). Approximately 25% of students make the grade, apply to attend, and are placed in a Senior Secondary School, most of which are boarding schools. Senior Secondary School is not free, as fees must be paid for books, supplies, uniforms, room and board, etc. Because our classroom experience here was limited to secondary schools, and schools with IREX alumni teachers, we were interacting with a very small subset of Ghanaian students - the most academically successful, whose families can afford to send them to secondary school. There are many, many children who are not in school and are working to support their families in agricultural fields, villages, towns and cities.
Ghana has one of the highest GDPs per capita in Africa ($2931) and a healthy GDP growth rate (14% in 2011). Valuable resources include gold, timber, cocoa, diamonds, manganese and bauxite. (Almost all coffee and cocoa is for export. Coffee served in restaurants is instant Nescafe and processed chocolate is virtually impossible to find.) Oil was discovered in the Western Region in 2007 and there is much hope that this resource will be successfully exploited to support sustained economic growth. Despite valuable export resources, Ghana continues to be reliant on significant foreign economic and technical assistance and remittances from the Ghanaian diaspora. The highest proportion of GDP (35%) is derived from the agricultural sector and unemployment, particularly among youth, is very high. 28% of the population is estimated to be living below the poverty level.
The gap between the haves and the have nots is in front of your eyes everywhere you go. Informal economic activity dominates, and everywhere, EVERYWHERE, people are trying to eke out a meager existence by selling whatever they can sell. Huge disparities in housing quality are obvious. Clean, safe drinking water is not a given and lack of sanitation is a serious problem. Official statistics indicate that 75% of the population has access to an improved water supply and 18% have access to adequate sanitation. Based on what I have seen in my two weeks here, those estimates are on the high side. The infrastructure simply does not exist to provide clean, safe, reliable water and sanitation to urban and rural dwellers. My Essential Question (a required component of our TGC Capstone Project) revolves around water security. Read my summary HERE.
One of my TGC Ghana group members, Karen, discovered this video that does a great job of representing life for the "Have Nots" in Accra.
Under the Mango Tree from Steven Bartus on Vimeo.
