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.