Abstract
Community involvement in education has been viewed as a – by no means uncontroversial – means for enabling local members to deepen their participation in the decision-making relevant to their schools by playing a constructive role in the process. On the basis of a study carried out in Ghana, the present contribution to this discussion examines various matters involved in delegating the management of an Alternative Primary Education program to two traditional communities in the north of that country. It also explores how community members, school authorities, the sponsoring non-governmental organization and members of the local management committee themselves perceive such an approach to school management. Issues raised include whether inexperienced and even illiterate local citizens should be allowed to manage their schools, the conflicts which such management often entails and, finally, in what ways it might be beneficially promoted.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akukwe, Grace N. 2001. Community Participation as a School Improvement Strategy in Ghana. Paper Presented at the 45th Annual Comparative and International Education Society Conference, Washington, DC, 13–17 March 2001.
Anzar, Uzma. 1998. An Exploratory Study of Factors Which Have Contributed to the Sustainability of Community Participation in Education in Balochistan, Pakistan. Ph. D. dissertation, American University.
Atakpa, Stephen K. 1996. Factors A. ecting Female Participation in Education in Relation to the Northern Scholarship Scheme. Accra, Ghana: Ministry of Education.
Baku, Joshua J. K., and Dominic K. Agyeman. 1997. Effects of Community Participation on Access and Quality of Education in Four African Countries: The Ghana Experience. Paris: UNESCO.
Binda, Kissonpersad P. 1995. Perceptions of Local Control in a First Nations Tribal Community. McGill Journal of Education 30(2): 199–209.
—. 1999. Administering Schools in a Culturally Diverse Environment: New Developments in Administering First Nations Schools in Canada. Paper presented at the Symposium of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management, Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada, 19–23 April 1999.
Bjork, Christopher. 2003. Local Responses to Decentralization Policy in Indonesia. Comparative Education Review 47(2): 184–216.
Blakemore, Kenneth P. 1975. Resistance to Formal Education in Ghana: Its Implications for the Status of School Leavers. Comparative Education Review 5(3): 237–250.
Bray, Mark. 1999. Control of Education: Issues and Tensions in Centralization and Decentralization. In: Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local, ed. by Robert F. Arnove and Carlos Alberto Torres, 207–232. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Chapman, David, Elizabeth Barcikowski, Michael Sowah, and Emma Gyamera. 2002. Do Communities Know Best? Testing a Premise of Educational Decentralization: Community Members' Perception of their Local Schools in Ghana. International Journal of Educational Development 22(2): 181–189.
Clark, David. 1996. Schools as Learning Communities. London: Cassell.
Cleveland, David A. 1986. The Political Economy of Fertility Regulation: The Kusasi of Savanna West Africa (Ghana). In: Culture and Reproduction: An Anthropological Critique of Demographic Transition Theory, ed. by W. Penn Handwerker, 263–293. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Evans, David R. 1983. Participation in Non-formal Education at the Local level: Ghana and Indonesia. In: Nonformal Education and National Development, ed. by John C. Bock and George J. Papagiannis, 271–294. New York: Praeger.
Farrell, Joseph P. 1998. Improving Learning: Perspectives for Primary Education in Rural Africa. Paper Prepared for a World Bank-and UNESCO-sponsored Regional Workshop with the Support of the Norwegian Trust, Lusaka, Zambia, 6–11 December 1998.
Harris, Alison M. 1998. School-Community Relationship: A Namibian Case Study. Master's Thesis, University of Alberta.
International Fund for Agricultural Development. 1997. Participation: People Behind the Project. Available at www.ifad.org/pub/participation/e/english.pdf,accessed 3 July 2002.
Kaplan, Michael H., and Robert D. Tune. 1978. Citizens in Public Education: Five Levels of Participation. Community Education Journal 6(3): 14–16.
Mfum-Mensah, Obed. 2003. The Impact of Non-Formal Education Programs: A Case Study of Northern Ghana. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Toronto.
Michener, Victoria J. 1998. The Participatory Approach: Contradiction and Cooption in Burkina Faso. World Development 26(12): 2105–2118.
Miller-Grandvaux, Yolande, and Karla Yoder. 2002. A Literature Review of Community Schools in Africa. Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development.
Ministry of Education. 1999. Comprehensive Framework on Education. Accra, Ghana: Republic of Ghana.
Nath, Samir R., Kathy Sylva, and Janice Grimes. 1999. Raising Basic Education Levels in Rural Bangladesh: Impact of a Non-Formal Education Programme. International Review of Education 45(1): 5–26.
Psacharopoulos, George, Carlos Rojas, and Eduardo Velez. 1993. Achievement Evaluation of Colombia's Escuela Nueva: Is Multigrade the Answer? Comparative Education Review 37(3): 263–276.
White, Jennifer. 1995. A Communication Triple Crown: Making Home-School Connection among Parents, Students, and Teachers. In: Exploring Blue Highways: Literacy Reform, School Change and the Creation of Learning Communities, ed. by JoBeth Allen, Marilynn Carry and Lisa Delgado, 145–160. New York: Teachers College.
Zaalouk, Malak. 1995. Field Mission Report to Quena and Sohag with CIDA Canada. Cairo: UNICEF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mfum-Mensah, O. Empowerment or Impairment? Involving Traditional Communities in School Management. International Review of Education 50, 141–155 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:REVI.0000041907.00747.5d
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:REVI.0000041907.00747.5d