The Educational Impact of Military Coup D'etats in Ghana on Education

Thesis statement: Coup d’état is not beneficial for Ghana’s education Reasons: education funding cuts, teachers were not paid salaries.

This thesis argues that coup d’états by the military in Ghana has stalled the education trajectory of many younger generations in Ghana. However, this phenomenon is not relative to Ghana alone. Many African nations who have fought the colonial rule and gained political independence were equally undermined by their military system. Most of these military systems connived with foreign agencies such as the CIA (Centre Intelligence Agency) to stage coup-d’états’ at a period some of the African countries were beginning to determine what kind of political system they should adopt (Birmingham 1998, p.48). These inner workings have tampered with the governance of the country at large, which has brought upon the Western powers to oversee the circumstances.

Long before sexual orientation became a publicly discussed subject globally, Kwame Nkrumah, the first democratically-elected president of Ghana, provided a non-discriminatory provision to accommodate those segments of people in the Republican constitution, including race, tribe, religion or political beliefs in the early 1960s. As a principled individual, Nkrumah stood against corruption in his own party and dismissed his cabinet members and those officials who were to be culpable. The president did that to set a high standard of integrity as a public servant (Milne, 1999). The focus by Nkrumah’s political decisions has been focused on advancing all citizens’ welfare.

Ghana was once a beacon of strength and inspiration to many African countries because it was the first country in the Sub-Sahara to gain independence from the British colonial regime. The country served as a home and training center for many aspiring African leaders and activists. Kwame Nkrumah who is the first President of Ghana after almost one hundred years of British colonial rule and he was branded a dictator by some Western countries such as the United States and Britain and Joseph Kennedy, the father of JFK, the President of United States, called him “the communist Nkrumah” when Nkrumah was actualizing a system of governance which meets the needs of Ghanaians and African peoples in the continent: education. Africa was never divided prior to Europeans scramble for Africa in 1884 and Africa must unite was a profound call which has a legitimacy in the African context.

Nkrumah inaugurated National Council of Ghana Women in Ghana, instituted equal pay for equal work for women and assured full pay for women on maternity leave. The Ghanaian educational system suffered greatly on two fronts: firstly, the successive Ghanaian governments cut on educational funding and the exodus of noteworthy numbers of trained and highly qualified teachers to other African countries, which necessitated the recruitment of untrained teachers in primary and middle schools.

The military organization first and foremost mandate is to defend the nation from foreign and domestic aggression, but sometimes, personal ambitions and the craving for power by some key military players served to fuel coup d’état in the country in which they have no mandate of the people to govern. In some situations, officers have led a coup to regain lost prestige or to preempt an impending purge; like what happened in Ghana when two judges and a retired major were killed as enemies of the revolution on a special assignment which involved a civilian agent as part of the assassins.

The European trade mission to Africa was initially established to exchange material goods as merchandise, but turned out as mercantilism, a political economy in which capitalism gave birth to the slave trade. Africans were captured to work ruthlessly in Europe and the United States of America.