Transferred and Adapted Models of Secondary Education in Ghana: What Implications for National Development?

The secondary-education models implemented in Ghana since colonial times constitute a classic case of "educational transfer and adaptation". Transferred from England, and in recent years the United States of America and Japan, these models have had a significant impact on Ghana's development in diverse ways. Yet educational research on Ghana has under-recognized this important issue of "educational transfer and adaptation", especially the relationship between these transferred models and national development. This study addresses such neglect by first focusing on those institutions that served as prototypes. Second, it appraises the models pointing out their implications for national development. It is contended that the foreign models that were adapted (indigenised) have been significant instruments for the human- resource and socio-political development of Ghana. However, their emphasis on the academic type of education ultimately has tended to create a situation of dependency particularly with respect to techno-scientific and economic development.     

Transferred and Adapted Models of Secondary Education in Ghana: What Implications for National Development?

The secondary-education models implemented in Ghana since colonial times constitute a classic case of "educational transfer and adaptation". Transferred from England, and in recent years the United States of America and Japan, these models have had a significant impact on Ghana's development in diverse ways. Yet educational research on Ghana has under-recognized this important issue of "educational transfer and adaptation", especially the relationship between these transferred models and national development. This study addresses such neglect by first focusing on those institutions that served as prototypes. Second, it appraises the models pointing out their implications for national development. It is contended that the foreign models that were adapted (indigenised) have been significant instruments for the human- resource and socio-political development of Ghana. However, their emphasis on the academic type of education ultimately has tended to create a situation of dependency particularly with respect to techno-scientific and economic development.     

Exploring the Materiality of Literary Apps for Children

Children’s literature is increasingly being realized in app format, with its possibilities of combining text, music, sound effects, stills, animated movies, verbal language and, not least, interactivity. This digital and medial literary development calls for new analytical approaches to explore its manifestation in children’s literature – its materiality in particular. Exploring and analyzing the app Sofus and the Moonmachine by Burup et al. (Sofus and the Moonmaschine, The Outer Zone, Copenhagen, 2016), which integrates various art forms and sensory appeals and prompts different reading paths and types of interaction, this article suggests how a materiality approach can shed light on the formation of meaning in literary apps for children. The analysis is founded on three aspects of the materiality of literary apps: its manifestation as text, its embedment in a medium, and its manner of being and interacting with the world. The scholar of literature and technology, N. Katherine Hayles, has particularly emphasized the materiality of literature, and her theoretical framework will be combined with cultural theory on materiality and theory in children’s literature in order to examine how the concept of materiality may be used in approaching an understanding of literary apps for children and cross-media reading.     

Cultural Issues in Secondary Education Development in West Africa: Away from colonial survivals,towards neocolonial influences?

The urban areas of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) have become sites for cultural and educational convergence, as well as the reproduction of the élite as a class, far more than the rural areas. The urban secondary schools in cities such as Accra and Cape Coast in Ghana, and the lycées in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, serve as sites for the realization of these goals. Here, the cultural pull and push factors arising from West Africa's 'triple cultural heritage' that is African, EuroChristian and Islamic have placed considerable strain and stress on secondary school students and secondary education as a whole. This situation has been further complicated in recent years by the interplay of cultural pull and push factors emanating from the West, especially Britain, France and the United States. This complicated postcolonial condition with its implications for nation-building and development in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire constitutes the subject of analysis in this article. It is argued that the cultural pull and push factors and the forces of globalization emerging from the West tend to move secondary education and secondary school students in both countries towards neocolonial influences.