AFRICAN CULTURE FOUNDATIONS OF ECCD

1. UNIT 1: Cultural, Philosophical and Historical Perspectives of Early Childhood Care and Development and Education AFRICAN CULTURE FOUNDATIONS OF ECCD

2. OBJECTIVES OF LESSON • Establish ECCD as • African and Ghanaian culture • A historical fact, therefore vital part of our culture • A field of endeavour shaped and influenced by our world-/ life view • An endeavour that should be Africentric nature.

3. KEY THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS on UNIT 1 • How do I view ECCD? As African/Ghanaian culture and therefore indigenous and within my mastery, or as something acquired and therefore alien and difficult to manage within my cultural terrain? • Is ECCD relevant to the Ghanaian experience and by extension the African experience? • Should Africa shape its own ECCD culture by its cultural ideals or resort to imitation of other cultures’ ideals? Should ECCD be the result of careful contemplation of African reality within a global world, or not? • What are the implications of African reclaiming our right to define ECCD for ourselves vs. importing ECCD ideas without considering their usefulness to us as a people? • What danger does neglect of Africentric ECCD pose to us as a people?

4. FIRST THINGS FIRST • What is Early Childhood? • Early childhood encompasses the period of human development from prenatal to transition from home into an ECCD centre or school. This period typically covers ages 0-8 years. • What is ECCD? • A field of endeavour that focuses on supporting the development of young children. • Links children’s biological, cognitive, social and emotional aspects to care (by families, communities and nation) needed to develop these aspects. • ECCD is multi-disciplinary; it includes health, nutrition, education, child protection, social welfare, etc.

5. ECCD as African/Ghanaian Culture • Is ECCD our indigenous culture as Africans/ Ghanaians or is it borrowed? • Focus on children and their development as the African/ Ghanaian way, since the beginning of human civilization. • According to Mbiti and Ackah, for example, the African child is seen in Africa as symbol of continuity. • Children as the past, present and future of African life. • Their care therefore occupies a central place in our way of life.

6. What are some of the activities in our way of life which are ECCD? • From the day a woman conceives to the day she gives birth, there are ceremonies and rituals and activities that influence the development of the child. • Nutrition of mother. She eats special food and avoids others. Akamba women for example do not eat fat or meat killed by poison arrow) • Activities of mother. She must not have sex; must not work close to fire; etc). • Parental care by mother’s parents (Ingassana, Sudan). • Removal of harmful items from house, such as machete, arrows, etc) to protect child (Akamba, Kenya). • Social regulations: Expectant mother not speaking directly to her husband, but through intermediary (Mao). • Spiritual regulations: making of prayers to God • These prohibitions illustrate the care and protection which both mother and child should and do receive.

7. ECCD: African culture or Not? • ECCD as therefore a natural part of African life. It is indigenous culture that is subject to cultural evolutions of African people, but has been and continues to be, even in modern times determined to the largest extent by African attitudes of mind, beliefs and experience.

8. We end here. We meet again on Tuesday to deliberate on: • African/Ghanaian philosophical foundations of ECCD • Historical foundations of ECCD in Africa and Ghana • In the meantime, I will post the Question for the Week, and selections to be read before Tuesday at divergent page tomorrow afternoon. Access from 4pm onwards. Do well to post any questions and observations and even additional reading lists you believe may be helpful to us on our page, under UNIT ONE STUDENT QUESTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS.

9. UNIT TWO: GREAT THINKERS AND EDUCATORS WHOSE IDEAS HAVE SHAPED ECCD IN GHANA.

10. UNIT TWO: GREAT THINKERS AND EDUCATORS WHOSE IDEAS HAVE SHAPED ECCD IN GHANA. • ECCD has been and continues to be shaped by the notions and ideas of great Pan-African and nationalist civilizers - thinkers and educators who have children and the proper development of Ghana at heart. • What ECCD is for us today is the fruit of their work. • Distinguished great African thinkers and educators have been at work shaping and directing the path of ECCD on the continent since before the arrival of Europeans and their ways in Africa. • Their work was built upon by sons and daughters of the continent through the many events that have shaped the civilization that we call Ghana.

11. UNIT TWO: GREAT THINKERS AND EDUCATORS WHOSE IDEAS HAVE SHAPED ECCD IN GHANA. • Pre-colonial Era • The great ECCD thinkers and educators of the pre-colonial era were the Ancestor/esses, Elders and other holders of positions of responsibility in society, such Chiefs, Queenmothers, Abusuapanyin, Herbalists/Shamans, Spiritual leaders (Traditional and Muslim religions), Parents, etc. These were the chief influencers of the design of ECCD practices and services. • Knowledge shaping ECCD hidden in proverbs, songs, riddles, rituals and ceremonies. • Knowledge disseminated and enforced through ceremonies such as puberty rites, betrothals, marriages, naming ceremonies; games; speeches given during festive occasions, etc. • Welfare of the child was a chief concern for society during this era,

12. UNIT TWO: GREAT THINKERS AND EDUCATORS WHOSE IDEAS HAVE SHAPED ECCD IN GHANA. The arrival of the Europeans on the continent marked yet another era of events. It plunged the peoples that were grouped as ‘Gold Coast’ into a state of.... Out of this state arose a number of guardians of the ECCD customs, as well as influential thinkers whose passion was to preserve our civilization. • Colonial Era Rev. Samuel Richard Brew Attoh-Ahuma – nationalist politician, pioneering Pan-Africanist, journalist and author (1863-1921) Samuel Richard Brew Attoh-Ahuma (December 22, 1863-December 15, 1921) was a nationalist politician, journalist, and author, active at the height of the colonial period. Born Samuel Solomon, he changed his surname to Attoh-Ahuma in 1898. He was born in 1863, and was the son of the Rev. James Solomon, a Wesleyan minister.

13. Ato Ahuma • He was educated at the Wesleyan elementary schools and the Wesleyan high school at Cape Coast, and was then trained for the ministry of the Wesleyan Church. He later attended Richmond College, Cape Coast, from 1886-88, to continue his religious studies.  He become a clergyman in the Methodist Church but as a nationalist his views displeased the Methodist authorities. After he had written an article in his newspaper in 1897, entitled "Colony or Protectorate, Which?," he was forced to leave the Methodist Church. In the same year he went to England, and undertook several preaching assignments, while at the same time undertaking research on African subjects in the British Museum.

14. ATTOH-AHUMA • In 1898 he and J. E. K. Aggrey (q.v.) were among four scholars chosen by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (A.M.E.Z.) Church to study for the ministry in Livingstone College, Salisbury, North Carolina. While on his way to the U.S., someone taunted him about his Anglo-Saxon names, and in the same year he changed his surname from Solomon to Attoh-Ahuma. He graduated B.A. in 1902, and returned to the Gold Coast to become principal of the newly-established Accra Grammar School, and later of A.M.E.Z. Church secondary school. He joined the A.R.P.S., and in 1912 became editor of its newspaper, The Gold Coast Nation. He became secretary of the A.R.P.S. in 1913. • In 1914, he returned to the Methodist Church, and served in the Winneba, Saltpond, Axim, Dixcove, and Elmina circuits all in the central and western coastal region. He was also the general manager of the Methodist educational units for these circuits

15. ATTOH-AHUMA • One of AttohAhuma's outstanding achievements was the active part he played in showing his countrymen, especially the educators and policymakers that there were many good things in their customs worth preserving, and that there was the need to preserve the Africanness of our culture and education in the wake of European presence. • He advocated the use of local languages in instruction at all levels of education, starting in the early years, as it promoted nationalism and the hope of a brighter future for the people. • While being progressive, and thus calling educators and stakeholders in the care of children to open themselves up to the use of Western advancements in childcare and support practices, he also preached the use of indigenous knowledge systems in caring for our children.

16. ATTOH-AHUMA • He expressed these sentiments through his writings in his four books - Memoirs of West African Celebrities (1903), The Gold Coast Nation and National Consciousness (1911), Cruel as the Grave (1913), and His Quest and Conquest (1917), which were well-read by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and shaped his education agenda for children of an Independent Ghana, especially care and education in the early years. • His famous words were “DO NOT ROB US OF OURSELVES” • He influenced the thinking of other intellectuals and educators such as Kobina Sekyi, Kwame Nkrumah and Kofi Busia, so much that these embraced their African heritage and changed their foreign names to local names, as part of the process of reclaiming their identity. Eg. Kwame Nkrumah changed his name from Francis Kofi Nkrumah to Kwame Nkrumah, while Joseph Patrick Busia changed his to Kofi Abrefa Busia, on the basis that “he was neither Hebrew or German, and in any case Abrefa was a greater name”.

17. DR. SAMUEL DUKER • Dr. Samuel George Duker was born in 1905 and died in 1994. • He was a pioneering physician from the Gold Coast. • He was very instrumental in the provision of and improvement of medical services to children in the Gold Coast. • He, and his works on culture-appropriate care for African children have, however, received very little attention from Ghanaian educators and ECCD service providers.

18. REV. ANAMAN • Born in1866 and died in 1939. • He was the only published linguist, who did not travel to Europe to conduct research or publish his books. He was home-grown. • He published simple stories from gold Coast history, an easy reader for young Gold Coasters, and a few others in Nzema and Fante as a means of inculcating pride and interest in all things African and Gold Coast, and also a sense of pride in their language. • When there was a debate in the Gold Coast as to whether to use local languages in education and child rearing, he published a series of books that defended the need to use the languages. His books include the Fanti and English Instructor, The Fante Spelling Book, Fanti Life of Jesus, Fanti Primers 1, 2 and 3. • Despite his efforts, Rev. Anaman has received very little attention from early childhood educators in Ghana.

19. J.A.Annobil • J.A.Annobilwas born in 1910. • He was a proponent of Africa-centred education for young children during the colonial days. • He put life into his beliefs by authoring Fante Readers for Children.

20. S.K. OTOO • Born 1908 • He started his career as a teacher. He later became a headmaster. He was Africa-centred in his thinking concerning children’s education, especially their psycho-social grooming within an African setting. This view of education made him a great influencer of culture education in the Gold Coast. • His pedagogical activity as a teacher made him receptive to many problems with children’s textbooks and books. • He was very much steeped in the traditional ways of life, and produced many books that were aimed at directing the minds of the young people towards their culture and towards nationalism. • Examples of his books are: Apokc ho Nyimdzee (Hints on traditional fishing, 1946), Mbrewosenhemba (The Art of Making Canoes, 1956) and Nworabana Apokc (Star Lore and Fishing, 1962). These books are notable textbooks on traditional fishing. He also wrote Nyame Bekyere and Nana Asaase Afua, all books that teach the child about his roots.

21. KOBINA SEKYI • Born in 1892, as William EssumanDwira Kobina Sekyi. • He was a lawyer and nationalist intellectual who extolled the use of vernacular or local languages in education as a means of engendering nationalism in the heart of every Ghanaian, from the early years right up to university level. • Sekyi’s lectures in Cape Coast influenced many great educators and providers of care services for young children of his time, and was a catalyst to later developments in children’s education and care in the southern region of the Gold Coast. • He inspired many Gold Coast writers of children’s books, textbooks, and curriculum to desire to infuse local content into teaching and learning in the Gold Coast. • His writings, along with others such as Akrofi, Asamoa, Annobil and Otoo provided basis for the advocacy for the use of local languages in instructing young children in today’s kindergartens and lower primary schools. Also the freedom and confidence of young children to respond to their local names. • More notable in his works is his fight to provide reprieve for children in schools who had no English names and were abused as a result. Sekyi is noted for his laments about the biases of the people of his time, towards all things European in society, which had resulted in a situation where children without European names were “mercilessly teased, sometimes even with the connivance or active encouragement of teachers, into demanding tearfully at home, brofodzin. Because their friends have such anomalous and meaningless names.” (for more, read Identity Meets Nationality: Voices from the Humanities

22. REV. AWUKU ASAMOA • Born 1910and died 1965 • He was an educator who advocated the use of Ghanaian language as a medium of instruction in the early years. • He also advocated a “system of bilingualism” in which there will be the development of a national language as well as adoption of the English language as a second language. • He, just as Sekyi, Anaman, Akrofi and Ahuma believed in linguistic nationalism and in their day their ideas shaped education services rendered to young children in the colony. • He, however died a disappointed man as his attempts to get Nkrumah’s government to adopt the use of local languages in the primary schools failed to take root. During Nkrumah’s rule, English was the medium of instruction in the primary school. • His dream, however began to see the light of day after the overthrow of Nkrumah.

23. OTHER NOTABLES • Kwegyir Aggrey • King John Aggrey Essien 1809-11899 – king of Cape Coast, Pioneering Pan Africanist • Dr. Henry Mercer-Ricketts 1895-1980 pioneering physician • Mr. Francis Ludowic Bartels , – Author of Fante Readers for Children • Joseph Ghartey (b.1911) • C.A. Akrofi (b.1901)

24. GREAT THINKERS AND INFLUENCERS OF ECCD SERVICES IN THE GOLD COAST, pt. 2

25. HEALTH CARE AND CHILD WELFARE • Dr. Frederick Victor Nanka-Bruce • Dr. Frederick Victor Nanka-Bruce (9 October 1878 – 13 July 1953) was a physician, journalist and politician in the Gold Coast. • Nanka-Bruce built up a private medical practice in Accra, and was a government adviser on public health. • In 1915, at a time when infant mortality rates were high in the Gold Coast (e.g. 360/1000 live briths in Accra), he drew the attention of the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast to the serious loss of the life among mothers and babies. The necessity for a specialist children hospital was proposed to curb the high infant and maternal mortality in the Gold Coast Colony.The governor of the Gold Coast at the time, Sir Gordon Guggisburg, took a stand and considered the importance of a children’s hospital. This led to the establishment of the Princess Marie Loiuse Hospital in 1926, a decade later.

26. Also, his petitions paved the way for the introduction of infant welfare services in 1921 by Dr. Jessie Beveridge of the Scottish Mission. She opened a clinic and a dispensary for the treatment of minor ailments of school children and infants in a mud hut behind the Scottish Mission at Christianborg (now Osu). • This service was an instant success, as women from as far distant as the Northern Territories brought their to the clinic. Infant welfare centres soon sprung up all over the country supervised by Women Medical Officers; there were centres in Kumasi, Cape Coast, Koforidua, Ho. • His services also brought in such great doctors like Dr. Cicely Williams who changed the face of child health, with her research into the prevention of kwashiorkor among children in the early years. • By 1930, the Christian Missions has also opened centres in Amedzofe and Kpandu where the Catholic sisters ran a popular infant clinic, treating nearly 3000 cases a year. • Generations of Medical Students, Doctors and child welfare worker will remember his unrelenting voice and contributions towards the development of better health and nutrition services for Ghanaian children. • More on Nanka in the article: CHILD HEALTH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES – By Yaw Asirifi

27. DR. CICELY WILLIAMS • Born 1893, Died 1992 • A Jamaican physician, notable for her discovery and research into Kwashiorkor. • Child Health Pioneer and Woman Health Officer in the Colonial era. • Dr. Cicely Williams deserves special mention as probably the most prominent of the Women Medical Officers. She joined the Colonial Medical Service in 1928 and was engaged principally in Maternal and Child Welfare Clinics which were apt to provide preventive care only. • She integrated curative care into her practice and accepted African Women’s insistence on staying with their children in hospital saying “a cuddle is worth a lot of medicine”. Within 3 weeks of the opening of the PML Hospital in April 1929, her services became so popular that police had to be called in to control the crowds. • Generations of Medical Students and Doctors will remember her monumental research work on malnutrition and the introduction of the Ga name “Kwashiorkor” into Medical Literature. This work was published in Vol. 8 of Archives of Diseases of Childhood 1933 and in the November 16, 1935 Edition of the Lancet (60 cases over a 3 year period). • She received much antagonism from H.S. Stannus, regarded as an expert on African nutritional deficiency. She followed up her work with more research into the difference between kwashiorkor and pellagra, a deficiency caused by lack of nicotinic acid or tryptophan in children’s diet. Caused by excessive intake of maize. • ECCD healthcare services, for children in the colonial era and immediate post colonial era, were greatly improved as a result of her pioneering work.

28. While the European missionaries (doctors, teachers, etc) worked tirelessly in the Gold Coast to establish their system of child care and formal education, the few great African thinkers of the time busied themselves with speaking for the local people rights to services that benefited the African. • Patriotism was high on the minds of great African thinkers and child care service providers during the colonial times. • The great thinkers wished for and advocated for the creation of an atmosphere that supported the healthy development of the African child, in a purely African way. • Their proposals towards improvements in child care and education services, therefore, were full of nationalistic sentiments. • The colonial period, for the Pan-African and Africa’s nationalist thinkers and voices on education was a period of consciously elevating the African way of child care and education.

29. Successful education, for example was the one which developed in children a mind that had the ability to solve African problems with Africa’s resources. • For example, the Eurocentric way of caring for and educating children, which was prevalent at the time received much criticism, even from Kwame Nkrumah who was still a student himself at the time. • In one article entitled Primitive Education in West Africa (1941), he demonstrates the robustness of the education system he left behind in his home continent. He says: • " ... the education of a child is largely a process of acquiring, in the first place, conditioned reflexes, and then, the more permanent associations and systems of conditioned reflexes that we call habits. The leaders of primitive West Africa, for a long time, consciously or unconsciously, have been aware of this psychological fact.

30. He concluded that West African education "gave efficient preparation for the activities of life and so it fulfilled its purpose,” • Later, he questioned the validity of a Eurocentric education offered by missions: • .. under such a system of education the youth of Africa is not prepared to meet any definite situations of the changing community except those of the clerical activities and occupations for foreign commercial and mercantile concerns . • .. any educational program which fails to furnish criteria for the judgment of social, political, economic, and technical progress of the people it purports to serve has completely failed in its purpose, and has become an educational fraud.

31. INDEPENDENCE ERA - DR. KWAME NKRUMAH • Born 1909, Died 1972. Pan-Africanist and First president of Ghana • From his earlier days as a student with a Pan African mind, Nkrumah decided to dedicate himself to obtaining freedom for his people and all of Africa. African children, whom he saw as the future of the continent, occupied an important place in his heart and mind. • He introduced the Accelerated Development Plan, which was the first all-African attempt to revolutionize education and provision of education services for the African child. • Nkrumah’s ADP was aimed at creating highly literate society to meet the challenges of a young independent sovereign state. • Under the plan, adult education, especially education of women occupied a prime position as an educated woman meant stronger, healthier and able citizens of the fledgling nation - Ghana. Nkrumah was greatly influenced by Kwegyir Aggrey, who proposed national transformation through education of Ghanaian women (if you educate a man...)

32. Education at the primary level became fee-free and compulsory, together with incentives for children from deprived communities. • All school-going Children enjoyed 6-years of fee-free primary education. • The building of schools was prioritized. By 1964-65 school year, Ghana had 9,988 primary and middle schools. • Training colleges and Colleges of Education were established to train teachers that would provide excellent education services and programs for the school children. • Nkrumah’s vision for education in Ghana had created 47 teacher training colleges at Fosu, Enchi and Berekum. The Advance teacher training college, the Specialist Teacher Training College and the Deaf Specialist Training College, now a part of UEW were included in the number. • University of Cape coast was established in 1962 to train teachers for primary or Basic Education in Ghana. • All towards the kind of education that would uplift the mind of the African child, who would become the nation-building adult.

33. DR. EFUA SUTHERLAND – CHILDREN’S AFFAIRS • A Ghanaian writer and dramatist of international renown, Efua Sutherland (1924 – 1996) was also a teacher, scholar, and cultural activist. • From the 1950’s to the 1990’s she was in the forefront of literary and theatrical movements in Ghana.  • She devoted herself to building indigenous models of excellence in children’s education and pioneered research into the use of Drama, play and story-telling in children’s education. • Auntie Efua, as she was affectionately known, made children’s issues central to her life and work.  • After pioneering an indigenous movement in writing, publishing and development through drama for children, she was appointed in the 1980’s to lead Ghana to become the first country to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Declaration of Rights of the Child.  • Through the work of the Ghana National Commission on Children, of which she was a founding member and Chair, several initiatives for ECCD and children were moved forward including the Children’s Park Library Complex network,  Child Literacy and Mobile Science Laboratory projects, as well as the commissioning of extensive research on the Ghanaian child.

34. BAME NSAMENANG • Born 1951, a Cameroonian • Associate professor of psychology and learning sciences at Yaoundé University ’s Advanced School of Education. • Bame is one of the visible leaders advocating the development of a system of ECE that is culturally appropriate and contextually sensitive and which is consistent with the African Union’s (2006) “vision of an integrated, peaceful, prosperous Africa, driven by its own people to take its rightful place in the global community and the knowledge economy”. • Over the years, Bame is making and has made valuable contributions to UNICEF, UNESCO and WHO as consultant and in commissioned work, at both national and global platforms. He has influenced policy at high levels with his views and advocacy for a more ‘African’ education and care services for Africa’s children. • He has written textbooks and books on ECCD and ECE which are being circulated around African Universities for the training of African teachers of the very young. • Some of his works include: • Cultures of early childhood care and education • (Mis)Understanding ECD in Africa: The Force of Local and Imposed Motives • Agency in early childhood learning and development in Cameroon.  • In a globalized context, local culture must be the anchor of identity • A Critical Peek at Early Childhood Care and Education in Africa • Cultures in early childhood care and education

35. AMOS WILSON • Born 1941, died 1995 • African-American psychologist, social theorist, Pan-African thinker, scholar and author. • Wilson affirmed that the purpose of education and intelligence for black people is to solve the problems in their communities and secure their survival in the world and any school • The school systems we have now have failed to provide blacks with the tools necessary for these tasks and was in fact mis-educating them. • Wilson felt that the social, political and economic problems that blacks faced were unlike those of other ethnicities and thus equal education ought to be abandoned for a curriculum tailor-made for blacks. • He thus spent his energies on reconstructing education for the black child. • His thoughts influenced movers such as Efua Sutherland Addy and continues to influence the Ghana Commission on Children, who act as advisers to Ghana Government, Ministry of Women, Gender and Children’s Affairs, UNICEF, and WHO. Afrocentric schools and education centres for the development of Ghanaian children such as Afrika Renaissance and Akoma School at KEEA also take inspiration form Amos Wilson. • His books include: • The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child (1978) • Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children (1992) • The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child — Second Edition (2014)

36. NEXT WEEK: • Founders of Western Extraction • John Amos Comenius • Jean Rousseau • Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi • Frederick Wilhelm Froebel and • Dr. Maria Montessori