ガーナの中等職業教育政策に対する国内外からの影響 : 植民地時代から現代まで

This paper will examine how far external and internal factors have influenced secondary education policies from colonial period. Especially, it will compare vocationalization policies (shifting curricular focus from academic to employable skill preparation) in the colonial period (the 1920s-30s) and the present against the social, political, and economic backgrounds of the different time periods. Ghana's secondary education, from its inception in the colonial period, has been driven by strong external forces, such as the British colonial administration or international organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations oganizations. However, policies brought in from outside have been transformed through the process of appropriating them into local context. The author points out that, in Ghana, the strongest internal factor which affected the policy appropriation process has been the common belief that formal education is for white-collar employment. Throughout its history, Ghanaian formal education functioned as credential system for employment. The level of completed education, not the content of education, has determined the type of jobs people could attain. Because of its job market structure and public aspiration, there has always been demand for higher and more academic education than for vocational training. By investigating the gap between public aspiration for education and governmental drive for vocationalization, the author argues that although external forces often dominate the initial policymaking stage, in the process of implementation, public demands work to bend the original intention of the policy. This historical analysis provides a perspective to understand the causes of recurring failure of vocationalization policies of secondary education in Ghana and suggests an alternative policy-making process.