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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Socio-Moralist Vocationalism and Public Aspirations: Secondary Education Policies in Colonial and Present-Day Ghana |
Author: | Yamada, Shoko |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | Africa Today |
Volume: | 52 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | Fall |
Pages: | 71-94 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ghana |
Subjects: | educational policy secondary education vocational education Education and Oral Traditions colonialism History and Exploration Politics and Government Development and Technology Labor and Employment |
External link: | http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/africa_today/v052/52.1yamada.pdf |
Abstract: | This paper investigates secondary education policies in colonial and contemporary Ghana, focusing on two periods, the 1920s to 1930s and after the 1987 educational reform. It pays special attention to the 'vocalization' 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. While in the international arena vocational education has been justified in various ways (mostly in economic terms), in Ghana, the primary reason for introducing vocational education has always been the development of socially appropriate character, as a means of halting social problems such as urban migration and unemployment. The consistent sociomoralism 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 changes, but the causes of the problems are in labour structure and the incentive mechanism of schooling. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited] |