Socio-Moralist Vocationalism and Public Aspirations: Secondary Education Policies in Colonial and Present-Day Ghana

Socio-Moralist Vocationalism and Public Aspirations: Secondary Education Policies in Colonialand Present-Day GhanaAuthor(s): Shoko YamadaSource: Africa Today, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 71-94Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4187845 .

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Socio-Moralist Vocationalism and Public Aspirations: Secondary Education Policies in Colonial and Present-Day Ghana Shoko Yamada

This paper examines the socio-moralistic justification of vocational education in colonial and contemporary Ghana. In the international arena, vocational education has been justified in various ways (mostly in economic terms), but in Ghana, the primary reason for introducing vocational education has always been the development of socially appropri- ate character, as a means of halting social problems such as urban migration and unemployment. The consistent socio- moralism of vocational education has been met with persistent public aspirations for academic and longer education. The government has attempted to solve social problems by curricular change, but the causes of the problems are in labor structure and the incentive mechanism of schooling.

Introduction

Education has captured the attention of African public and political leaders since the late colonial period. The public has persistently pressed for more and better education; and to secure public support, politicians have com- mitted themselves to provide education. But while there has been a widely shared perception of education as a gateway to social advancement, politicians and bureaucrats have seen a different utility in education: the formation of personalities that internalize "proper" social values and become good members of society without causing problems. The character-development aspect of education could have diverse meanings, depending on the type of character the society wants to develop, and the forms of education meant to develop character are also diverse.

In this paper, the author investigates the secondary education policies of two periods, the 1920s to 1930s and after the 1987 educational reform. It gives special attention to the "vocationalization" policy, which was



commonly promoted in both periods. Vocationalization aims to diversify the school curriculum so that students can take classes in vocational subjects. The point is to diversify the general secondary-school curriculum, instead of establishing a separate track of vocational school. In both periods, vocationalization was often discussed in moralistic terms, not necessarily in terms of economic demands for a trained workforce. To put it differently, vocationalization of secondary education has been seen as a means of character development, a way to avoid social problems of urban migration or youth unemployment.

It is generally agreed that the educational policies of African countries are under the strong influence of external forces. In fact, the education policy of colonial Ghana was introduced by the British colonial administration, which developed a standard education policy for all the territories of the British Empire. In present-day Africa, the situation is similar. "Educa- tion for All (EFA) Millennium Development Goals," as agreed upon at international conferences organized by international aid organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, frame the education policies of countries around the world. Policies of highly aid-dependent countries like those in Africa' are more strongly influenced by external forces than less-aid-dependent countries. In the same vein, vocationalization policy is not original to Ghana; however, in the global discourse, vocationalization is justified in a more utilitarian way: by diversifying general secondary education, it can more flexibly meet changing labor demand than traditional separate-track vocational education. This differs markedly from the Ghana- ian socio-moralistic justification. This difference between Ghanaian and international justifications of vocationalization indicates that while global trends influence education policy formation, meaning is made locally.

In the following sections, I shall demonstrate the consistency between the Ghanaian vocationalization policies of secondary education in the 1920s to 1930s and those after 1987. I follow this demonstration with an overview of the changing discourse on vocational and secondary education in the international arena since the 1920s. The last part looks at public expectations of social advancement by means of education, which show consistency from the colonial period to the present. While international trends on vocational and secondary education have been changing, the domestic discourse on Ghanaian education has not changed much. The government's justification for vocationalization and its policies have been met with steady public demand for more academic education to obtain better jobs. This paper demonstrates that local discourse has its own dynamic, highly independent of international ones, and that the actual implementation of a prescribed education model is a unique process, reflecting specific contexts. It points out the broadness of possible definitions of vocational education. Precisely because of that broadness, this form of education has been favored by politicians in different times and places.

The primary data used for the current analysis were of two kinds: one is historical data collected at libraries and archives in the United Kingdom

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and Ghana; the other is interviews the author conducted with Ghana- ian education policymakers and school administrators in the summer of 2002 and fall of 2003. The analysis of these primary data is supported by secondary sources.

Vocational Secondary Education in Colonial and Contemporary Ghana

Colonial Vocationalism

During his governorship (1919-1927), Governor Sir Gordon Guggisberg brought about a landmark shift in the Gold Coast2 government's educational policy. He inaugurated programs in various public sectors to prepare the industrial and social bases for the Gold Coast to be economically self-sustaining. He declared that his government regarded education as "the first and foremost step in the progress of the races of the Gold Coast" (Colonial Office 1923: 202). Annual governmental expenditures on education increased by a factor of four during his governorship (from ?54,442 in 1919 to ?213,000 in 1927), and the number of schools doubled (from 255 to 534) (Colonial Office 1919, 1928).

In 1920, to articulate a comprehensive education policy, Guggisberg created the Education Committee, which "strongly advocated a plethora of manual activities such as gardening, woodwork, metal work, and clay work to overcome the 'mere bookishness' of school instruction. Furthermore it suggested the establishment of a new secondary school with a marked technical bias and a great deal of practical work" (Foster 1965:149). Guggisberg's Sixteen Principles, announced in 1925, were the products of the Education Committee. Guggisberg's policy stressed practical and vocational education, universal access to education for both sexes, character development at school, and the provision of high-quality teachers. The sixteenth principle called on the government to provide a "technical and literary education that [would] fit young men to become skilled craftsmen and useful citi- zens" (Colonial Office 1923: 204-205, emphasis original). Achimota School, a model secondary school with a vocational bias, was established in 1927 upon the Education Committee's recommendation, and it drew half of the Gold Coast's educational budget.

Vocationalism Today: Junior Secondary School

The Educational Reform Program (ERP) of 1987 introduced a 6-3-3-4 school system, which simplified and shortened the length of pre-university education from seventeen to twelve years.3 The changeover occurred during the government of J. J. Rawlings, who seized power by means of military coups supported by the masses. The government naturally had a strong pop- ulist orientation; therefore, while seeing education as a means of providing

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skills to live (including vocational skills), it announced its intention to provide universal access to education. It condemned academic education as elitist, while highly educated leaders in various fields-especially those who were politically active-were purged from their positions. The extreme populism of the government was replaced by the centrist liberalism of the Kufor government, which took office in 2000. It has basically maintained the vocationalizing policy of secondary education.

According to the ERP 1987, the vocationalization of junior secondary school (JSS), the lower level of secondary education, is meant to provide vocational orientation to students, rather than to train them in employment skills, while the vocationalization of senior secondary school (SSS), the upper level, is meant to provide skills for paid or self-employment (Akyeampong 2002:iv-12). Because of the author's focus on the socio-moralism of vocationalization, this paper will discuss mainly the JSS level. Vocationalism in JSS aims to eliminate the distaste of manual work and plant a work ethic and attitude in the minds of students, that is, to orient students' minds, rather than to transmit specific skills.

According to government statistics, enrollment in public junior secondary schools in relation to the population in the age group 12-14 was 67.4 percent in 2001-2002 and 70.2 percent in 2003-2004. Both proportions are markedly higher than the proportion ten years earlier: 56.3 percent in 1991-1992 (Ministry of Education 2003, annex 4:2). At the same time, the number of private JSSs, which presently make up just 7.5 percent of all JSSs, has been growing rapidly. As enrollment in primary education is growing, pushed by an international initiative for Universal Primary Education by the year 2015, demand for education at the JSS level is growing too. There is widespread anxiety among politicians, educational administrators, and the public about how to handle the mass of students who finish JSS but are not absorbed into the labor market. Social unrest and unemployment of JSS graduates ("leavers") is a recognized social problem that continues to provide justification for the old policy of vocationalization, which was reinforced in 1987. In interviews, the author often heard that the program of vocational orientation in JSSs will help students to find employment locally, instead of aspiring for unavailable white-collar jobs.

Justifications of Vocationalization

The following quotations from policymakers of different times illuminate the fact that their lines of argumentation are identical, despite the number of years between them. Sir Gordon Guggisberg observed that the cause of unemployment was the type of person developed through education:

We are flooding the market with semi-educated youths[,j for whom, owing to their disdain of manual labour, there is annually less employment. The very fact that they are educated tends to separate them in thought and sympathy

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from their less advanced relations. . . . Failing employment in an office, and strongly imbued with an unhealthy dislike to manual labour, they fall a natural victim to discontent and consequently to unhappiness. (Colonial Office 1925-6)

The Ghanaian policymakers interviewed by the author in 2002 share the view that the rate of youth unemployment is the result of an education system unresponsive to the current situation. Their solution is to voca- tionalize education to prepare students for the world of work as it exists. One staff member of the Secondary Education Division, Ghana Education Service (GES), suggested that

greater attention now should be paid to vocational, because we have a large number of students, pupils, leaving JSS level, who cannot enter SSS for one reason or another. ... Because if you look at the number that are left behind, you wonder what happens to them. What are they doing? But if we do vocational at JSS, it would be good thing for them. (Anonymous 2003. Interview by author. Accra, Ghana)

Another problem commonly believed by policymakers of both periods to be reparable through vocationalizing education is urban migration by school graduates. These policymakers agree that the current educational system develops people suited for urban employment, but not for those who would stay in rural areas. Therefore, again, the curriculum should be reformed to meet the local socioeconomic context. According to a report of the Education Department of colonial Ghana:

[The inspectorate] have also marked and deplored the drift to the towns of boys who have been educated in the country districts under a curriculum which prepared them only for town employment. The Ashanti [the ethnic group in western- central Ghana] does not need to be shown that farming will pay, for he knows it already, but he does need to be given, in school, at least that attitude towards, and training in, farming which he would obtain in ordinary family life and experience. (Colonial Office 1936-1937:32-33, emphasis added)

Nearly seventy years later, a GES staff member echoes the colonial report:

The problem now is that we have a lot of influx of people coming from rural areas and everybody coming into Accra. They are all moving from the villages into the capital. So why don't we come out with a strategy such that when we train them we make them to work in the villages? (Anonymous 2002. Interview by author. Accra, Ghana)

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The common characteristic of the policymakers' opinions is that they see vocationalization of the formal school curriculum as the solution to the problem of unemployment and urban migration-a solution that they expect to reorient students from aspiring to unattainable employment in cities to accepting available jobs in their vicinity. Vocationalization is seen more as a strategy of moralistic socialization than as skill training for employment.

"Achimota was like JSS" 4: Educational Tools for Character Development

For the purpose of comparison with today's vocationalism in JSS, it is worth reviewing the discussion surrounding Achimota Secondary School, established by the colonial government in 1927. Achimota paid great attention to African culture and customs and tried to avoid alienating students from their social backgrounds, because "no one can be a true leader or friend of his people unless he sees from their point of view, standing in line with them" (Fraser, first principal of Achimota 1936). Achimota was to prepare leaders, not manual workers, but it stressed handwork because its founders believed that by eliminating contempt for manual labor, education can avoid leaders' estrangement from their followers. Alienation of educated Africans from the masses, who made a living through farming and other manual work, was believed to be the cause of social unrest and unemployment of the educated. Various kinds of handwork were introduced into school life because

such work, of course, will tend to create a belief in the dignity of labour, and militate against the vicious tendency for educated youths to despise what makes the hands hard or dirty. Not only work in gardens and farms, but work in leveling sports fields and digging drains in the war against mosquitoes helps in this same endeavour. (Blumer 1933:13 emphasis added)

Discourse on Achimota is a showcase of educational ideas and issues recognized by colonials, educationists, and African intellectuals of the early twentieth century. Because Achimota was established as a model school, there are abundant records about it showing that socio-moralistic vocationalism was among the latest educational thoughts of the time. Therefore, Achimota's vocationalism was echoed in discussion about other kinds of educational institutions, such as technical and primary schools.

More than seventy years after the establishment of Achimota, the Ghanaian Ministry of Education reiterated the colonial justification of vocationalism in its JSS policy. In a report, it stated that the pre-technical, prevocational education of the JSS is aimed at developing a person who "appreciates the use of the hand as well as the mind" and is "eager to contribute to the survival and development [of society]" (Ministry of

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Education 2000:23). The discourse of Achimota and JSS coincide in stress- ing character development through practical handwork. In both cases, the idea is to develop an "all-round" person, capable of contributing to society either as a leader or as a commoner. Appreciation of "the dignity of labor" has been considered one of the most important aspects of such character development. What should be noted here is the persistent nature of government's analysis and the expectation attached to education to tackle social issues. The stress on vocationalism reflects the government's expectation that problems such as unemployment or urban migration can be halted by enhancing morality. The policymakers of both periods concluded that vocationalized education can be the solution.5

External Influences on Vocational Secondary-Education Policies

External Influences on Colonial Vocationalism

Colonial socio-moralistic vocationalism had three sources: American black industrial education, the first and most vocally introduced model; Victorian moralism, which was promoted at British Public Schools and state schools; and the theory of "learning by doing," advanced by John Dewey and other American progressive educationists.

In 1919 and 1924, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a New York-based phil- anthropic foundation, dispatched commissions to Africa to explore the possibility of adapting American black educational models to African environments. A characteristic of these models was the intention to give black students training in skills needed for jobs available to ordinary blacks, and to instill character training to accept a lower social and economic posi- tion (see, for example, Anderson 1988:46-55). The influence of this model was strong in British Southern and Eastern Africa, where white settlers perceived racial confrontation as being more acute than in West Africa. In West Africa, the white population was much smaller, largely because of the climate, which was perceived as difficult for Europeans, and because African intellectuals were more organized and politically active there, especially in the Gold Coast. Therefore, colonial administrators were cautious about openly referring to an educational system designed to inculcate black acceptance of low economic and sociopolitical status. (For detailed analysis on this point, see Yamada 2005 forthcoming). Even so, Guggisberg in 1923 praised the American models highly in a speech, which demonstrated that he was well informed of the latest educational ideas.6

Character development was a major interest of educational thinkers of the early twentieth century, especially British socio-moralists. No form of education-whether for future leaders or for the working class, whether literary or vocational-could be considered complete unless it included character development. Based on this belief in the moral role of education, British educators devised tools to socialize students to the norms and

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values that would supposedly shape their character. For example, life at boarding school was considered important to learning social responsibility and cooperation, and extracurricular activities-such as social service for neighboring communities, team sports, and scouting-were encouraged. These activities was considered to form the cosmos in which students learned, from experience, to become useful members of society. The Brit- ish moralists did not necessarily promote vocationalism, but its spirit of character training through practical experience has a lot in common with vocationalism in colonial Ghana.

The third influential educational idea of the time was that of Ameri- can progressive educationists, headed by John Dewey. Progressives considered that schools should train leaders who would transform societies to be truly democratic. To do so, progressives considered that it was not enough to lecture on the concept of democracy; rather, the school environment itself should be democratic so that students would learn to be democratic through experience. This is another experiential approach to character development, although it was fundamentally different from the former two in that they basically intended to maintain the status quo: what the progressives aimed at was the development of social transformers.

American black industrial education, British moralism in education, and American progressivism directed the education policy of colonial Ghana in the 1920s and 1930s. They were different in their objectives, but converged in their emphasis on experientialism and character development. At the same time, ideologies do not shape themselves or gain currency independent of socioeconomic and political environments. Because of the common emphasis on experientialism, progressive educational philoso- phies were often associated with racially segregated vocational education in Africa, even though its original design had nothing to do with the issue of race. Suspicion of the products of a purely literary education, which spread widely among Europeans, gave currency to the philosophy of "practical education."7 Colonial administrators saw educated Africans as a threat to colonial rule, reflecting their experience in India where educated elites developed strong nationalist pressure to end colonial rule. Educated Afri- cans were gradually excluded from higher appointments in colonial government, and newspapers published by African nationalists grew aggressive against oppression (see Edsman 1979; Holmes 1972; Kimble 1963). In such a context, Europeans and Africans alike saw "practical education" as a means to oppress Africans via an inferior form of education. It was natural that Africans distrusted this form of education: however hard Governor Guggisberg and his allies on the Gold Coast tried to cut the negative link between "practical education" and racial containment, they never achieved full support from any corner of the colony for their "practical education" for national leadership.

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Global Trends in Vocational and Secondary Education in the Postcolonial Era

The late 1950s and early 1960s, when many African colonies achieved independence, saw the establishment of international organizations with their attendant goal-setting. In 1963, the World Bank launched a massive loan program for vocational education in developing countries. Between 1964 and 1969, secondary-level vocational education was the bank's second- largest area of educational loans, for which 20 percent of all funds were allocated (Atchoarena and Caillods 1999:69).8 In contrast, provision for general secondary education was gradually curtailed. Comparing World Bank funds allocated for educational subsectors in the period 1963-1968 and 1969-1980, subprofessional training (technical, vocational, and agricultural education) rose from 26 to 32 percent, while secondary and higher education declined from 70 to 31 percent (Jones 1992:125).

Support for the shift in funding from general secondary and higher education to vocational secondary education was provided by the economic theory of "human capital." This theory is based on the rates of return on investment in education. The difference between the wages of graduates and the cost expended by individuals (tuition, transportation to school, forgone opportunities for earning, etc.) and by society (tax revenue spent on education) are calculated as the private and social rates of return, respectively. The higher the rates of return, the more effective the education is considered to be in preparing the workforce. Until the 1970s, the reports of international organizations stated that the rate of return from vocational secondary education was high (World Bank 1963).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the World Bank initiated a series of research projects on the rate of return from vocational secondary education in Colombia and Tanzania. The report of the projects stated that while the cost of introducing vocational subjects was higher than conventional academic education, graduates from vocational secondary schools neither found employment more quickly, nor earned higher wages than graduates of conventional schools (Psacharopoulos 1988:275). Also at that time, segregated vocational secondary education began to be criticized from the viewpoint of egalitarianism (Benavot 1983:73). It had been pointed out that vocational graduates often experience economic and social inequality, largely due to the general perception that vocational school students are academically less qualified than those in general secondary schools. Given the criticism from the egalitarian perspective and the lack of convincing evidence of the cost-effectiveness of vocational secondary education, international educational discourse since the 1980s has headed toward blurring the boundary between general and vocational secondary curricula. Voca- tional school students learn increasingly more academic subjects, and general secondary schools have diversified the elective subjects to include more practical subjects. The latest international trend in vocational education is to entrust nonformal bodies of education with specific skills training and to make formal education-whether vocational or academic-more general

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preparation for the world of work. By utilizing this nonformal channel, it is hoped that vocational preparation will be more flexible and reflective of workforce demand (Atchoarena and Caillods 1999:76-80; Fluitman 1992:5; McGrath and King 1999:216).

The shift of global educational ideologies is directly linked to a shift in the financial focus of international organizations. The World Bank's investment in vocational education declined by half from the 1960s to 1990 (table 1). Within this subsector, the secondary level showed the sharpest decline. In 1992, the Bank decided to reduce loans to this sector further, to only 6 percent of the total amount for the education program (World Bank 1991). Within general education, funding increases were mostly at the primary level. The global shift of funding to primary education accelerated from the late 1990s with the Millennium Development Goal of Univer- sal Primary Education by 2015. In such a situation, secondary education suffered, in general and in vocational categories.

As seen in table 2, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the only regions in the world where the proportion of vocational students is steadily decreasing. All other regions showed increases between 1990 and 1996. In Latin America and Europe, one-quarter of all secondary students are on a vocational track, while in sub-Saharan Africa, less than 6 percent are. Ana- lyzing this disparity, Atchoarena and Caillods find a positive correlation between the level of an economy's development and the relative importance

Table 1: Distribution of project investments, by education sub-sector, FY 1963-90

1963-76 1977-86 1990 US$M Percentage US$M Percentage US$M Percentage

General education 963 42 6,171 52 1,222 64 Primary 134 6 2,580 22 456 24 Secondary 461 20 1,176 10 163 8 Non-formal 30 1 48 0 0

(literacy) Post-secondary 89 4 1,615 14 323 17 Teacher education 251 11 752 6 280 15

Vocational education 1,150 51 5,220 44 489 25 and training Secondary 511 23 706 6 69 4 Post-secondary 367 16 2,810 24 302 16 Non-formal 249 11 1,579 13 45 2 Teacher education 23 1 124 1 73 4

Non-allocated 153 7 368 3 207 11

Total 2,266 100 11,759 100 1,918 100 Source: Jones 1992: 182

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Table 2: The proportion of secondary-level pupils in vocational and technical education by region and by category of country

Average Average

1960 1970 1980 1990 1996 1960-96 1980-96

Sub-Saharan Africa 15.40 10.70 6.40 5.80 5.30 8.72 5.83

Arab countries 17.00 11.10 10.70 12.00 15.30 13.22 12.67

Far East and Oceania 4.10 11.50 13.60 9.73 9.73

South Asia 1.70 1.70 1.50 1.63 1.63

Latin America 24.00 22.40 24.10 23.40 26.30 24.04 24.60 and the Carribean

Europe 24.30 26.40 24.60 25.60 26.70 25.52 25.63

World 13.80 14.60 10.50 12.00 13.00 12.78 11.83

Developing countries 9.80 9.10 6.70 9.50 10.60 9.14 8.93

Less advanced countries 4.20 5.30 5.10 4.87 4.87

Developed countried 15.70 19.10 16.20 17.00 18.50 17.30 17.23

Souzrce: Atchoarena and Caillods 1999: 71. Based on UNESCO statistics, 1998.

attached to technical education: this is because the advanced economy requires a larger workforce trained at formal vocational schools (1999:71).

Atchoarena and Caillods' statement requires careful examination. A positive correlation does not imply a causal relationship. Economic advancement may be the cause of increased demand for vocational secondary schools; however, in the case of Africa, budgetary allocation to vocational education is largely out of the control of governments. As stated earlier, sub-Saharan Africa is the most aid-dependent region in the world, by any measure. This implies that educational provisions in sub-Saharan African countries are vulnerable to the policy changes of international organizations. Therefore, it is reasonable to attribute the declining proportion of vocational students in sub-Saharan Africa as much to the reduction of external financial assistance as to the industrial structure of the country. At the same time though, policy shifts by international organizations are not the only reason for the decline in emphasis placed on vocational education on the secondary level. Benavot reported that the decline was indeed a global phenomenon between the 1950s and early 1970s, and Africa only showed the sharpest decline. For Africa's departure from vocational secondary education, Benavot offers two reasons: (1) education in Africa entailed basic instruction in literacy and numeracy, rather than specialized skill training, in spite of recurring calls to the contrary (see also Foster 1966); (2) the industrial sector, which would require formal skill training, was still immature. The formal economic sectors that were expanding during this period were those in public service, which required academic qualification, not vocational skills (Benavot 1983:69).

Although twenty years have passed since Benavot published his article, the basic industrial structure and relationship between education and employment hasn't changed much. In the case of Ghana, wage earners still account for less than one-fifth (16.9 percent) of the population, whereas

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81.2 percent are self-employed. The largest employment sector is agriculture (62.2 percent), followed by the service sector (27.9 percent) and the industrial sector (10.1 percent) (ILO 2002). The industrial sector, which should be most closely linked to formal vocational education, is the smallest sector of employment. Such a dual economy, consisting of a large "traditional" sector (agriculture, fishery, etc.) and a small "modern" sector of salaried employment, is a common feature of sub-Saharan African countries. Fur- ther, more and more people in large cities are employed in the informal sector.9 According to a national household survey in 1997, 89 percent of the employed population is in this sector (Ghana Statistical Service 1998). Although the role of the informal sector in African economies has been long-lived, its growth in the last two decades has been enormous.

In assessing the impact of formal vocational training on productivity in the traditional sector, Little points out that the contribution of specific skills training to agricultural production is fairly small, although a general increase in schooling may contribute to technology innovation (1984:96). In the modern sector, the industrial structure in most sub-Saharan African countries does not require large-scale formal vocational education, except for a limited area of highly advanced technology; moreover, there is a widespread tradition of apprenticeship in Africa, by which youth are trained for jobs in small-scale and micro-scale enterprises in the informal sector. Recruitment for apprenticeship in these enterprises is highly dependent on kinship or other social relationships between masters and apprentices' families. Skills acquired in formal vocational education are often an unim- portant criterion for employment in this sector (Fluitman 1992:5). In sum, on the one hand, graduates of vocational secondary schools have limited prospects for employment in the formal sector; on the other hand, their lack of social relationships often becomes an obstacle for them in acquir- ing jobs in the informal sector (see Honig 1993; Mahomed 1996; McGrath and King 1999).

Such a dubious contribution of formal vocational education to labor markets in African countries helps confirm that the true aim of vocationalism at the lower secondary level in present-day Ghana is to serve socio- moralistic goals, rather than to address the demands of the labor market. Such moralistic justification of vocationalism has not been heard much in the international discourse, but has been consistently used in Ghana during at least two points in history-the 1920s to 1930s, and after the ERP in 1987. Global ideologies and the socioeconomic environment of the world have greatly influenced the domestic process of policymaking, but in contrast to the international fluctuation of policy on vocational and secondary education, the Ghanaian discourse has a certain continuity.

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Internal Factors: Process of Appropriation

Common Belief in Schooling

Despite its scale and ideology, the Achimota School was never imitated by other secondary schools. This is partly because of the cost of establishing the school; nothing but a government during an economic boom could establish the same kind of school. And Achimota itself has changed a great deal, largely because of a drastic budget cut after the founders left the Gold Coast colony. However, there was also always an undercurrent of suspicion about the school-that its vocationalism was really just second-class education, however nicely it was presented. Francis Agbodeka, an old Achimotan and historian, analyzes the situation as follows:

[While nationalist leaders saw the value of Africanization in Achimota philosophy], Achimota had never been fully popu- lar. They felt that Achimota was becoming an instrument. In fact[,] Achimota was [a] government [institution], that means ... colonial administration regarded Achimota as a favorite. ... So somehow, Achimota, in spite of what it was doing, which should gladden the hearts of [nationalists], Achimota was still regarded as a colonial tool. [They thought] it was being used by the government to suppress the African elite. (Agbodeka 2002. Interview with author, Legon, Ghana)

The links among vocationalism, second-class education, and the perceived inferiority of vocational education in the Ghanaian imagination are deep-rooted. The public education system developed as manpower demands grew in the bureaucracy and in European enterprises. The school was a place to prepare Africans to be clerks and lower-order government officials with minimal literacy and numeracy in English. As preparation for the world of work, such academic education was already "vocational" (Foster 1966). Although there was a tight link between education and white-collar employment, selection in the competition for the limited opportunities for such employment had not so much to do with what the candidate had learned at school, but which level of school certificate he or she possessed. The consistent preference of modern-sector employers for holders of academic school certificates degraded vocational education to second-class status (Dore and Oxenham 1984:27; Foster 1966).t0

Today, because of the government's effort to increase access to basic education, enrollment at JSS has increased steeply since late 1980 (see above). In theory, students are promoted automatically from primary school to JSS, although a lack of facilities and some social factors prevent many students from proceeding further. The real bottleneck is entrance to Senior Secondary School (SSS). At the end of JSS3, students take the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), which provides them with a school-leaving

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certificate. This, however, does not guarantee access to SSS. To enter SSS, they have to pass a highly competitive examination, the Common Entrance Examination (CEE). On average, students should score no higher than an aggregate 10 to 11 in the BECE to be competitive in CEE, but most students score between 31 and 60.1" Performance in exams from the JSS3 year deter- mines students' school careers, and for most students, JSS is terminal. The Government of Ghana targeted the achievement of a 35 percent promotion rate from JSS to the upper secondary level (SSS and technical school) in 2001 and 40 percent in 2004, both of which targets were said to have been reached (Ministry of Education 2004:25). But despite this trend, most students who finish JSS still cannot proceed to senior secondary education. The problem is twofold: JSS leavers do not give up their aspirations for further education (and salaried jobs), and Ghanaian society is not ready to absorb JSS leavers as part of the workforce. Referring to the double examination system of BECE and CEE, an executive of a Ghanaian research institute asserts:

[JSS] is a terminal thing. It's a node. And because politically we don't seem to be leading up to the problem, you have a situation where if you get a prescribed aggregate maybe 30 [in BECE], you are passed. And we have given the impression to people that everybody who passes [BECE] is a potential entrant into the secondary school. And we were not giving the truth of why there was a need for the Common Entrance. So now what happens? All these kids, some of them .... honestly, cannot cope with secondary school, are also hold- ing [the hope to proceed to Senior Secondary School]. (Abbey 2002. Interview with author. Accra, Ghana)

Such insistence upon further schooling and failure to realize the con- comitant limitations on students' future opportunities reflect attitudes that are hardly new. Writing about students of poor-quality private secondary schools in the 1960s, Bibby and Peil bemoan, "Many have no realization of how poor their chances of success are"; they stick to school because their "only alternative is to join the large number of unemployed middle school leavers" (Bibby and Peil 1974:401-402). A common belief that has persisted across the generations is that the longer you stay in the school, the more you will earn (Dore 1976). The link between educational credentials and modern sector employment hasn't changed; rather, it has intensified. As access to lower levels of education is increased, people stay in school longer to dif- ferentiate themselves from those with less schooling. The market value of educational certificates is thus inflated.

Vocational education in many African countries is irrelevant to the labor market in two ways: first, as discussed in the previous section, formal vocational education is not suited for the localized and fast-changing skill needs of the majority of the population who are self-employed or employed in the informal sector. Second, in terms of job preparation, academic education

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and its certificates are more closely linked to white-collar employment than is vocational education to manual work. Most parents and students who invest their time and money in schooling, especially beyond the secondary level, do so because of aspirations to white-collar jobs. When the public sees such a picture and become suspicious about any form of education that is vocational or practical, the policymakers' intention to solve social problems through vocationalism will be at risk.

What has school-based education done for Ghanaians since the colonial period? Based on the premise that education in Ghana has been a credential system to supply the existing job structure with manpower, rather than to transform it, the question is better phrased: how far has the educational mechanism to maintain the status quo affected individuals' choices? Do students' chances to climb the educational ladder differ with social background, such as parental education, parental occupation, sex, and locale? In other words, have schools functioned as a means of social mobility? or as a means of merely reproducing the existing social order?

Social Mobility or Reproduction?

[In Achimota], there were several people who came from nowhere, who came from nowhere at all, because they passed the exam, and they had come, and they had all forms of scholarships and so and so forth. ... I know somebody now who came from a small village near Keta. Our first day in the dormitory, I remember him, he was standing [by the electricity switch turning it on and off]. He'd never seen the electricity. But he, by the time we left upper [form] 6, had won all the prizes in mathematics, chemistry, and so [on] and so forth, became a brilliant gold medalist in London University for Medicine, became an orthopedic surgeon, and became a surgeon general for Barbados, and all that. I mean, by when he came, all he had was a very sharp brain. So if you had the image of somebody who did this on the first day at school, and turned out to be a really great scientist, then you understand what education can do to people. (An old Achimotan 2002. Interview with author. Accra Ghana)

Bowles and Gintis argue that in a capitalist society, equalization of access to education does not bring about income redistribution. The relationship between schooling and earnings is not so simply correlated as human capital theorists assume, because other factors such as class, race, sex, and a family's socioeconomic status often work to reproduce the "capitalist order" (1975:81). According to Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction, education systems assume familiarity with the dominant culture in a society, so students from higher-class families are more advan- taged than those from lower-class families because of their exposure to

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"cultural capital" at home (1974:32). Although students' social backgrounds are influential factors in their acquisition of educational credentials, in some cases, lower-class students move up a remarkable social distance. It is the frequency of such long-distance movement that demonstrates how fluid a social structure is.

In colonial Ghana, it was only after the 1940s that the number of secondary schools increased to more than a handful.'2 Until then, there were only two boys' schools (Mfantsipim and SPG, or Society of the Propagation of the Gospel) and one coeducational school (Achimota). Secondary students num- bered around five hundred each year.'3 No comprehensive data are available about secondary students' social backgrounds in the colonial period; however, a rough sketch can be made from interviews with people who graduated from Achimota and Mfantsipim between the 1930s and the 1950s.

Achimota in the early days truly functioned as a channel of upward social mobility for poor rural children. The episode quoted above was not exceptional. Every year, Achimota sent out staff to various regions of the country to identify bright students, usually those who got distinctions in the standard VII (last year of primary education) certificate examination. They were then called to an interview in Accra and selected as a scholarship student; for most, it was their first trip to the national capital. Though these students were from small villages, they were from coastal areas, which were more exposed to Western influence and had a larger number of primary schools; they were rarely from inland. There was another scholarship scheme for students who were not academically excellent, but who had the potential to be leaders of society and were from remote areas. Children of pastors, teachers, and chiefs were often selected for this scholarship, and were expected to return home after graduation to become key people in their localities. Winners of the first type of scholarship (for academic excellence) were few, but together with the latter type, the proportion of scholarship students was around 40 percent (Asante 20021.'4 Several national leaders at and around the time of independence went to Achimota on academic scholarship and were sent on scholarship to Europe for higher education. These included Emmanuel Amfom, first dean of the University of Ghana Medical School; K. A. Busia, national president and political activist in exile; K. B. Asante, staff member of first president, Kwame Nkrumah, and foreign service official; and A. A. Kwapong, a vice-chancellor at the Uni- versity of Ghana. These are people for whom Achimota opened doors of upward mobility.

Compared with earlier diversity of Achimota students, the students at Mfantsipim were more uniform. As a school founded by the Methodist Mission Society in 1876 on a far weaker financial basis than Achimota, it could provide only a couple of scholarships each year. The fees were not too high, and most of the middle-class students were funded by their fathers or other relatives. In general, parents who know the value of education are themselves educated to some extent; for earlier generations, this meant the completion of elementary school (standard VII), or private lessons in literacy

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and numeracy. Mfantsipim never made an effort to recruit students; as a result, most of its students were from Cape Coast, where the school was located, and coastal towns.

Mfantsipim was a stronghold of African nationalists, such as Casely Hayford, Mensah Sarbah, and E. J. P. Brown. The school officially announced its commitment to train youth who took pride in African tradition, but its education was highly academic. The subjects taught included Scriptures, history, English history, arithmetic, algebra, geography, English gram- mar, physics, chemistry, Greek, and Latin (Boahen 1996:31). The contrast between Achimota's vocationalism and Mfantsipim's academic education marked the emergence of a perennial mismatch between socio-moralistic vocationalism as promoted by administrators and the academic aspirations of the public. Mfantsipim was based on African nationalist principles and provided an ideal education, while Achimota served an ideal perceived by Europeans. Mfantsipim served to strengthen the existing cadre of African intellectuals, but Achimota was founded by the people who felt threatened by them and envisaged a different type of "African leader." This fact partly explains why Achimota reached out so widely and served as a channel of social mobility, while Mfantsipim recruited students from already educated families. To put it differently, social mobility is more likely in an educational environment that aims to transform the existing social mechanisms than in one that aims to maintain them.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the issue of social mobility in independent Ghana captured the attention of a corner of academia. Several statistical analyses of student social backgrounds at the secondary and tertiary level were conducted in this period (Bibby and Peil 1974; Foster 1963; Hurd and Johnson 1967; Peil 1965; and Weis 1979). According to paternal occupation, students' backgrounds by 1974 had become less diverse than in 1961, an indication of less social fluidity. Table 3 shows that the children of profes- sionals and semiprofessionals were overrepresented in 1974 to a greater extent than they had been in 1961. Only 3.8 percent of the total population

Table 3: Paternal Occupation of Sampled Secondary School Students, 1961 and 1974 (%)

Sample Fifth Formers (1961) Sample Fifth Formers (1974)

Males Females Total Males Females Total

Professional 2.2 7.1 3.2 13.6 13.6 13.6

Semiprofessional 16.3 36.8 20.3 19.0 33.0 22.3

Clerical 18.8 26.4 20.3 5.4 9.4 6.4

Uniformed services 0.7 1.1 0.7 2.3 3.7 2.6

Skilled worker 10.8 7.1 10.1 12.6 10.5 12.1

Semiskilled and unskilled worker 1.6 1.1 1.5 4.1 2.6 3.7

Trader, store-keeper, sales assistant 11.2 7.7 10.6 5.3 6.3 5.5

Farmers and fishers 38.4 12.6 33.4 37.9 20.9 33.9

Total 100.0 99.9 100.1 100.2 100.0 100.1

Sample size 756 182 938 612 191 803

Source: Weis 1979: 47.

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Table 4: Distribution of Occupations in Ghana, 1960 and 1970 (%) 1960 1970

Professional, technical, and related workers 2.3 3.8 Administrative, managerial, and related workers 0.5 0.4 Clerical workers 1.7 2.7 Sales workers (including traders) 13.5 13.2 Farmers, fishers, loggers 61.0 57.4 unskilled workers 18.8 19.6 Services, sports, and recreation workers 2.2 2.9 Total 100.0 100.0

Source: Data Book on Manpower Resources in Ghana, table is from Weis 1979: 45

had professional occupations in 1970 (table 4), but 13.6 percent of secondary students had fathers in this category.

The percentage of students whose fathers were farmers had been relatively constant: around 33 percent in both 1961 and 1974. However, according to Weis, of all secondary students whose fathers were farmers, 69 percent were children of cocoa farmers, although cocoa farmers constituted less than a third of the total farming population (1979:71-73). Hurd and Johnson criticize Foster (1963) for his conclusion that the proportion of children of farmers among secondary students is evidence of the egalitarianism of Ghanaian society and its social mobility (1967). In Ghana, as Hurd and Johnson point out, cocoa farmers are far from underprivileged: the majority are large-scale urbanized farmers using farm laborers.

Table 5 shows the birthplace of secondary-school students. One can see that, although urban bias was already strong in 1961, it had intensified by 1974. The longitudinal analysis of two indicators-parental occupation and birthplace-shows that access to secondary education has been more and more concentrated on urban children who had parents with occupations that require higher educational credentials. This conclusion is backed by table 6, which shows paternal education of secondary students in 1961. While the proportion of adult males who have more than a middle school education was less than 3 percent, the average level of education of secondary students' fathers was higher. In particular, fathers of female students had higher levels of educational attainment than the fathers of their male counterparts. From all indicators shown here, it is obvious that girl students

Table 5: Birthplace of Sampled Secondary School Students, 1961 and 1974 (%)

Total Sampled Fifth Formers (1961) Total Sampled Fifth Formers (1974) population Males Females Total population Males Females Total

Rural 77.0 39.5 21.4 36.0 71.1 18.1 10.0 16.1 Urban 23.0 60.5 78.6 64.0 28.9 81.9 90.0 83.9

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: Weis 1979: 46 and 49. Urban-a town of over 5,000 people (Ghana census definition)

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Table 6: Paternal Education of Sampled Secondary School Students, 1961 (%) Male Students Female Students Total Students

Educational Level Adult Male Population Paternal Selectivity Paternal Selectivity Paternal Selectivity

Education Index Education Index Education Index

No formal education 78.8 32.4 0.4 7.9 0.1 27.6 0.4

Primary school 6.3 9.4 1.5 4.7 0.7 8.5 1.4

Middle school 12.1 29.9 2.5 29.1 2.4 29.8 2.5

Commercial and technical school 0.4 2.2 5.5 2.6 6.5 2.3 5.8

Secondary school 1.4 9.6 6.9 20.7 14.8 11.8 8.4

Teacher training college 0.7 7.3 10.4 14.8 21.1 8.8 12.6

University or equivalent 0.3 3.9 13.0 11.7 39.0 5.3 17.7

Don't know and no answer 5.3 8.5 5.9

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Sample size 775.0 188.0 963.0

Selectivity Index: The ratio between a group's representation in the student sample and in the

Ghanaian adult male population. Sourlce: Foster 1966: 160.

have come from more privileged families than boys. Sex also affects access to education and, by extension, social mobility.

Although academic competition to enter university has long been tough, competition since the ERP of 1987 has descended to the JSS level. To enable their children to go to a good SSS (one that sends many students to university), parents make sure their children attend an academically well-performing private JSS. In the academic year 1999-2000, three-fourths of entrants to the University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Tech- nology came from the top fifty SSSs (out of 504 schools). Forty-six percent were from the top eighteen schools (Addae-Mensah 2000:6-14). While the promotion ratio from JSS to SSS is around 40 percent (Ministry of Education 2004), most of those who managed to go to SSS proceed no further.

Private universities are mushrooming to meet the demand for higher education. The gap between high-status schools and low-status schools is widening at both the JSS and the SSS levels. High-status SSSs are all public schools, and the fees are basically the same, regardless of status; however, it is extremely difficult for a student from a public JSS to enter a top SSS, and the average private JSS is one hundred times more expensive than its public counterpart. The average basic fees in a private JSS are about 700,000 cedis a year,L' with another 1.5 million required for uniforms, books, computer fees, excursions, and other miscellaneous expenses. A public JSS charges about 4,000 cedis in basic fees and about 18,000 cedis in miscellaneous expenses (Addae-Mensah 2000:18-19). Most private JSSs are in urban areas. The implication is clear: children of poor rural families are excluded from the stream of social mobilization at a young age. Social mobility through education is decreasing over time, while public aspiration for mobility is persistent.

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Conclusion

The irony of the Ghanaian vocationalizing policy of secondary education is that its moralism aims to contain the social problems of unemployment and urban migration, while the same education system plants aspirations for urban formal sector employment in the minds of the public, which causes these problems. It is an attempt to solve the problem by revising the curriculum and pedagogy, while the cause is in the overall structure. Schools transmit two contradictory messages: on the one hand, vocationalized curricula preach to students that village life is precious, and they should be proud of their forefathers' occupations and take them up willingly as their own calling; at the same time, students are socialized to urban-centered values through interactions with teachers and textbooks. Given the inadequacy of education in rural areas, it has been difficult for rural students to climb the educational ladder to the level of teacher-training college. Therefore, most people who attend teacher-training college are from urban areas, and most of the teachers assigned to rural schools have ties to cities (Pryor and Ampiah 2003). While these teachers teach the "dignity of labor," students see that their teachers constantly compare village to urban life and think of leaving at the earliest opportunity. Also, people notice that there is a chance of success in the city, even if it is a slim one, through education. In this situation, it is naive for the government to hope to resolve social problems by socio- moralistic vocationalism. Vocational education is sometimes assigned too many roles because of its flexibility of definition; however, policymakers should realize that social problems of unemployment and urban migration will not be solved by vocationalizaing the curriculum, as the problem is in the labor structure and the mechanism of incentives to go to school.

Furthermore, vocationalization is easy to state but difficult to imple- ment. To make it successful, educational administrators have to involve actors from outside the conventional educational system, such as local com- panies and employers and other ministries, like the Ministry of Employ- ment and Labor. Administrators must make a far bigger investment in facilities and equipment than they would for a narrowly academic education. The issues of cross-sectoral partnership and cost often hinder the successful implementation of a vocationalized curriculum. Therefore, vocationalization raises various issues from its philosophy to its implementation. It is a policy that requires strong leadership to overarch and develop consensus among all actors, from policymaking to implementation at the local level. It should meet changing labor demands flexibly, in defiance of the tendency of formal school curricula to be rigid. And more than anything else, it has to satisfy the public expectation of good employment after formal schooling.

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NOTES

1. Sub-Saharan Africa shows the highest rate among regions of the world in all of the following

measurements of aid dependency: aid as percent of gross national income (6.3 in 2002), aid

as percent of gross capital formation (32.2 in 2002), and aid as percent of imports of goods

and services (15.3 in 2002) (World Bank 2004).

2. Gold Coast Colony achieved independence from British colonial rule in 1957, together with

neighboring Ashanti and northern territories.

3. Education before 1987 was composed of a six-year primary, four-year middle, five-year

secondary (forms l-V), and two-year university preparatory course (form VI). The ERP 1987

changed this to a six-year primary, three-year junior secondary, and three-year senior sec-

ondary education.

4. Expressed by a graduate of Achimota School in the colonial period (Asante 2002. Interview

by Author. Accra, Ghana).

5. In fact, the problems of denationalization and unemployment of educated Africans had

been recognized as early as the 1840s on the Gold Coast. The solutions suggested involved

the establishment of vocational schools. Agbodeka suggests that the idea of vocational edu-

cation must have owed its inception to Danish "plantation colony" ideas, or to humanitarian

agricultural and legitimate commerce promotional activities, both of which were designed

as antidotes to the slave trade (Agbodeka 2002:11).

6. "I must state my conviction that one of the most important events that occurred in the his-

tory of the progress of the African peoples is the publication of the [Phelps-Stokes] Report

[on African education]" (Colonial Office 1923).

7. To identify the origin of educational ideas is another difficult task, which I will not explore

much in this paper. As philosophers develop their ideas, they not only respond to the

changing reality, but also influence one another's ideas. Since ideas interact, it becomes

more difficult to determine whose was the original. In the article on Dewey's influence on

Dutch education mentioned above, Biesta and Miedema argue, "The ideas that informed

educational practice [of a Dutch group] were, so to speak, 'in the air'.... While Dewey is

without doubt an important 'factor' in this renewal [of educational ideas], he is at the very

same time an 'effect' of the developments from which this renewal emerged" (2000:26).

8. According to "Proposed Bank/IDA Policies in the Field of Education," published in 1963, two

urgent needs were vocational and technical education, and secondary education (cited in

Jones 1992:55).

9. Honig defines the informal sector as the labor of small firms and individuals, often with

minimal resources; usually operating in "gray" areas with respect to legality; and employing

a wide range of activities and services (1993:2). Other traits of labor activities in this sector

include relative ease of entry (less requirement for formal training and employment and

more often based on personal relationships), reliance on indigenous resources, and domi-

nance of family-owned enterprises.

10. In 2002, King and Martin reexamined the thesis that the school functions as the credential

mechanism and educational content does not matter. They modified it, demonstrating

that there are some cases in which curricular effect and individual school character affect

students' occupational choice (King and Martin 2002). However, King and Martin's findings

did not overthrow the thesis of the 1960s, and it is still valid in Africa in the 2000s.

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11. There are six examination subjects. For each of these subjects, a grade between 1 and 10

is given relative to the performance of all students examined. The smaller the aggregate

score, the better the student's performance. The best possible aggregate grade is therefore

6. According to a survey by Addae-Mensah, in one district of Western Region in 1998,60.37 percent of 1,075 BEC candidates scored between aggregate 31 and 54. In 1999,54.29 percent of 1,048 candidates' scores were between aggregate 31 and 60 (2000:20-23).

12. Until 1948, when University College of the Gold Coast was established, secondary-school

and teacher-training colleges were the highest education available in the colony; some

people acquired degrees from British institutions.

13. The numbers of students for each school in 1934 were: Mfantsipim, 206; SPG, 183; Achimota, 116 boys and 18 girls (Council of British Missionary Societies n.d.).

14. K. B. Asante taught at Achimota in 1945-1948 and 1953-1957.

15. In August 2002, 1US$ = 8,000 cedis.

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Documents

Socio-Moralist Vocationalism and Public Aspirations: Secondary Education Policies in Colonial and Present-Day Ghana