From Pentecostalism to politics: Mass literacy and community development in late colonial Northern Ghana

Paedagogica Historica

Volumn 46, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 307-323

  Skinner, Kate ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Chiefs; Colonial administration; Decolonisation; Development; Education; Ghana; Gold Coast; Labour; Literacy; Missions; Northern Territories; Pentecostalism

Indexed keywords

EID: 77952478505     PISSN: 00309230     EISSN: 1477674X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00309230903194703     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. This research was made possible by funding from the Nuffield Foundation's New Career Development scheme, and by the people in Northern Ghana who contributed many stimulating insights into mass literacy, past and present. Particular thanks go to Yussif Hamza Kuyini, who acted as interpreter.
2. Letter of protest handed to Minister of Communication and Works (on tour), 5 December 1952. Public Records and Administration Department (PRAAD), Tamale, NRG 8/9/42.
3. Michael Omolewa, "Programmed for failure? The colonial factor in the mass literacy campaign in Nigeria, 1946-1956," Paedagogica Historica 44, nos. 1/2 (2008): 107-22, pp. 115 and 118.
4. Colonial Office, Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, Mass Education in African Society (London: HMSO, 1943). At meetings on 14 July and 31 July 1944, the Gold Coast Board of Public Instruction declared itself unwilling to act on this memorandum. PRAAD, Accra, RG 3/1/211.
5. Lord Listowel to T.R.O. Mangin, replying to R. Scott's despatch on the agitation for self-government, 19 April 1949, cited as Document 44 in Richard Rathbone, ed., BritishDocuments on the End of Empire: Ghana (London: HMSO, 1992).
6. Colonial Office, Mass Education, 10-14. For a biography of Read, see Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators: the British Indian and Colonial Education Service 1858-1983 (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2003), 227-43.
7. For a biography of Read, see Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators: the British Indian and Colonial Education Service 1858-1983 (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2003), 227-43.
8. Colonial Office, Advisory Committee for Education on the Colonies, Memorandum on Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (London: HMSO, 1925) and Memorandum on the Education of African Communities (London: HMSO, 1935).
9. and Memorandum on the Education of African Communities (London: HMSO, 1935).
10. The terms "traditional", "tribal" and "chief" appear in inverted commas in recognition of the substantial literature on the manipulation of ethnicity, identity and authority under colonial rule. For a lengthier discussion, see Clive Whitehead, "The historiography of British Imperial education policy, part II: Africa and the rest of the colonial empire," History of Education 34, no. 4 (2005): 441-54.
11. Dennis Austin, Politics in Ghana 1946-1960 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964).
12. Ibid., 130.
13. Gold Coast, Plan for Mass Literacy and Social Welfare 1951 (Accra: Scottish Mission Printing Depot, 1951), 5.
14. Letter from W.A.S. Cole, Acting Director of Social Welfare and Housing, 24 January 1950. PRAAD, Tamale, NRG 8/9/25.
15. See Allan Anderson, Spreading Fires: the Missionary Nature of Early Pentacostalism (London: SML Press, 2007).
16. W.L. Shirer, "Great Need in French Sudan," The Pentecostal Evangel, 6 February 1926.
17. Elliott Skinner, "Labor Migration among the Mossi of the Upper Volta," in Urbanization and Migration in West Africa, ed. Hilda Kuper (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965).
18. W.L. Shirer, "An Open Door in Africa," The Pentecostal Evangel, 11 April 1931.
19. The White Fathers opened a station at Navrongo in 1907, followed by schools, a hospital, and eventually a seminary.
20. Speech by W.L. Shirer, published as "Hearing the Macedonion Call to the Mossi Tribe," The Latter Rain Evangel, January 1930.
21. While the Shirers focused on the Dagomba, they frequently appealed for new missionaries to come and work among neighbouring peoples, particularly the Konkomba.
22. Shirer, "Hearing the Macedonian Call". The Mossi, Dagomba, Gonja and Mamprusi had centralised political structures, whereas groups such as the Tallensi and the LoDagaa had decentralised or "stateless" systems.
23. Shirer, "An Open Door."
24. M. Staniland, The Lions of Dagbon: Political Change in Northern Ghana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
25. Staniland, Lions of Dagbon, 51.
26. and E.F. Tamakloe, A Brief History of the Dagbamba People (Accra: Government Printer, 1931).
27. Interviews with Henry Kaleem (a grandson of the Dakpema), 15 September 2008, and with Tia Sulemana (chief of Zosali), 16 September 2008.
28. R.B. Bening, A History of Education in Northern Ghana 1907-1976 (Accra: GhanaUniversities Press, 1990), 152-57.
29. Bening, A History of Education, 57-61. This decision was influenced by R.S. Rattray, the government anthropologist, who argued that 80% of the people of the NTs spoke variants of "Mole-Dagbani" - which included the More, Dagbani and Mampruli languages.
30. Shirer, "An Open Door."
31. W.L. Shirer to Brother Perkin, "Report of a visit made to the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, held at Asbury Park, NJ, Jan 5 to 7, 1937". Copy provided to author by Gloria Robinett of the Assemblies of God World Missions Archives. I am grateful to Ms Robinett and to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Centre for making records accessible.
32. Mrs Lloyd Shirer, "Three Reasons Why We Carry the Gospel to the Heathen," The Latter Rain Evangel, November 1937.
33. W.L. Shirer, "The Work at Ougadougou, F.W. Africa," The Pentecostal Evangel, 24 October 1925.
34. For an analysis of orality in Pentecostalism, see Walter Hollenweger, "The Black Roots of Pentecostalism", in Pentecostals After a Century: Global Perspectives on a Movement in Transition, eds., Allan Anderson and Walter Hollenweger. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).
35. W.L. Shirer, "A Memorial Printing Press," The Pentescostal Evangel, 23 October 1937.
36. W.L. Shirer, "Progress at Tamale," The Pentecostal Evangel, 7 February 1942.
37. W.L. Shirer, "Recent Progress in the Gold Coast," The Pentecostal Evangel, 20 November 1948.
38. Jack Goody, "Restricted Literacy in Northern Ghana," in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Jack Goody (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 199-264.
39. Timetable and list of participants in conference on mass education, Tamale, December 1950. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/25.
40. Maurice Washman to Major Burden CCNTs, 30 April 1952. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/42.
41. Email correspondence, in author's possession. I am grateful to all the Assemblies of God missionaries who have communicated with me in the past two years.
42. The Shirers were separated from their children for five years during the Second World War, and government employment may also have offered better prospects for family life.
43. Gold Coast, Department of SW&CD, Literacy Campaign 1952 (Accra: West African Graphic Company, 1952), 16-17. According to the 1948 census, the NTs had a population of approximately one million while the Colony, Ashanti and British Togoland had approximately three million combined.
44. Progress report for quarter ending 30 September 1954. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/26.
45. th July, 1957." PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/6/32.
46. Tia Sulemana, who replaced Margaret Shirer at the VLB, spoke highly of her linguistic expertise and of the commitment shown by both spouses to Dagbani literacy. Former mass education students living around Nyohini also recalled W.L. Shirer's dynamism in constructing the rural training centre. Interview with Mahamud Abdullai and Musah Alhassan, Nyohini, Tamale, 14 September 2008.
47. Bening, A History of Education in Northern Ghana, 49-50.
48. Ibid., 91.
49. Kate Skinner, "It brought some kind of neatness to mankind: mass literacy, community development and democracy in 1950s Asante," Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 79, no. 4 (2009).
50. Shirer to DC Yendi-Dagomba, 22 April 1952. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/26.
51. Letter of protest handed to Minister of Communication and Works (on tour), 5 December 1952. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/42.
52. See, for example, Notes of visits by the deputy director of SW&CD, 3-16 January 1955. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 10/1/9.
53. Interview with Henry Kaleem, Tamale, 15 September 2008. Shirer to Director SW&CD Accra, 21 March 1955. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 10/6/2.
54. Shirer to director SW&CD 1 February 1955; and RI Andani to Shirer, 28 April 1955. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/42.
55. Gold Coast, Report on the Vernacular Literature Bureau, April 1951 to March 1952 (Accra: Government Printing Department, 1952).
56. W.L. Shirer to director of SW (n.d. but circa September 1950). PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/25.
57. W.L. Shirer, Resume of meeting held in Yendi, 28 October 1950. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/25.
58. Interview with Tia Sulemana (chief of Zosali), 16 September 2008.
59. Interview with Mahamud Abdullai and Musah Alhassan, Nyohini, Tamale, 14 September 2008.
60. Bening, A History of Education in Northern Ghana. Staniland, The Lions of Dagbon, 100 emphasises that the administration also feared Roman Catholic expansionism in education.
61. Staniland, Lions of Dagbon, 98-100.
62. Gold Coast, Plan for Mass Literacy and Social Welfare, 31-33.
63. Shirer to chief social development officer, Accra, (n.d. but probably July 1951). PRAAD Tamale, NRG 9/8/42.
64. Letter of protest handed to Minister of Communication and Works (on tour), 5 December 1952. PRAAD, Tamale, NRG 8/9/42.
65. Assistant director of agriculture, NTs, to Shirer, 16 August 1951. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/ 9/42.
66. Shirer's letter to Chief SD officer Accra (n.d. but probably summer of 1951). PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/42.
67. Staniland, Lions of Dagbon, 45.
68. Ibid., 92-98.
69. W.L. Shirer to assistant director of rural development, Tamale, 27 November 1952.PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/26.
70. In 1956 the regional staff conference complained not only about the continued staffing difficulties, but also about the lack of funds. W.L. Shirer to director SW&CD, Accra, 10 October 1956. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 10/9/2.
71. Kojo Amanor has identified a suspicious gap between the colonial rhetoric of development and the role of the North in supplying cheap labour to the export-oriented enterprises of the South. See Amanor's review of Jeff Grischow, Shaping Tradition: Civil Society, Community and Development in Colonial Northern Ghana, 1899-1957 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), in Journal of Agrarian Change 8, no. 4 (2008): 629-32.
72. W.L. Shirer to CCNTs, DC Tamale, assistant director of agriculture, Tamale, and chief SD officer, Accra, 2 January 1951. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/51.
73. Annual Report of the Department of SW&CD in the NTs, 3 December 1952. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/26.
74. Summary of Discussions about Rice (n.d. but probably following the one-day school held in 1956). PRAAD Tamale, NRG 10/17/1.
75. W.L. Shirer to CCNTs, 3 October 1951. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/27.
76. "Visit to Diari October 21, 1954, S Polgar." PRAAD Tamale, NRG 10/1/7.
77. Trekking notes for East Dagomba (n.d. but probably 1955). PRAAD Tamale, NRG 10/1/9.
78. W.L. Shirer to Government Agents, Yendi and Tamale, and director of SW&CD Accra, 11 September 1953. PRAAD Tamale, NRG 8/9/51.