Keynote Address

BY

MOST REV. MATTHEW KWASI GYAMFI

Conference of Regional Managers of Catholic Schools in Ghana

St. Joseph Retreat Center, Sunyani

Introduction

I wish to thank the organizers of this special program for the honor of asking me to speak to such a learned body. I feel honored to have been given this opportunity to share a few thoughts with you. I would not in any way take it for granted that since I am the Catholic Bishop here, I ought to do this; No, it is a privilege that you have enabled me to have, and I am very grateful.

Permit me, Mr. Chairman, to take this opportunity to welcome all of you to our teething but dynamic diocese. My dear guests, feel comfortable for this is your home. We promise to do our best to make you feel as welcome and as comfortable as possible. In moments where we are unable to satisfy your demands to the best of your interest, we would plead that you patiently bear with us. Once again, you are warmly welcome!

I also would like on behalf of the Church and the entire Bishop’s conference to register our sincere thanks and appreciation to you for your efforts in making Catholic schools stand out. We are aware that some of you are operating under trying and challenging conditions but these have not in any way deterred you from giving out your best to the Church and the nation as a whole. May God bless you and be gracious to you all.

The theme for our discussion during these few days, namely, Promoting Catholic Character in Our Schools – The Way Forward is timely and very appropriate. The theme presupposes that we are losing the Catholic character in our schools (otherwise there will not be any need to promote it). And how true! Gone are days where every Catholic school was equated with high academic achievement and discipline. Sad to note, some today do not measure to the required moral and academic standard and so the need to go back to our former days of enforcing the Catholic Character. What is more, in this age where morality is thrown overboard and cultural relativism has been enthroned in palanquins; in an age where there is minimal respect for gospel values and cherished religious and Catholic traditions, one cannot fold one’s arms and look on unconcerned but act accordingly to reverse the downward trend.

Catholic schools have been known to have an unparallel and enviable track record of quality delivery in terms of high moral and academic excellence and so we should be seen to setting the agenda by intensifying and promoting the Catholic character in our schools so as to achieve the desired results. It therefore behooves us the present educational administrators of Catholic schools to maintain the standard set by our forebears and build upon it. In this regard, you as the major implementing agents and key players in Catholic education must be well informed of the vision, philosophy, mission and objectives of Catholic education, appreciate, ruminate and internalize the benefits of Catholic education and regurgitate them for the effective formation of the learners who pass through your hands. In such way, the fruits of Catholic education would be evident in the lives of the pupils and students you educate, and the effect will trickle down to punctuate all that they do. Hence, the timeliness and appropriateness of this theme cannot be overemphasized.

I hope to discuss this theme along the following lines:

· Defining Catholic character: The Philosophy, vision, mission and objectives of Catholic Education

· The challenges at stake

· Proposing solutions to address them (the Way Forward)

· Conclusion

In January 1918, the Soviet Government ordered that “the teaching of religious doctrines in all state and public schools, or in private educational institutions where general subjects are taught, is prohibited.” And two days latter Lenin issues a decree forbidding the Orthodox Church from teaching religion in state or private schools or to any minors. The reason given by the government was that as a result of the home environment “children are victims of Religious fanaticism” (hans1930:31, 33). In the words of Bukharin and Preobrazhensky, “the Communist school forcibly expels religion from within its walls under whatever guise it seeks entry and in whatever diluted form reactionary groups of parents may desire to drag it back again (Bukharin and Preobrazhensky 1969, 283). Similarly in 1937 Hitler insisted that this Reich will hand over its youth to no one but will take its education and its formation upon itself” (Conway 1968:20 178). The Nazi leader Martin Borman issued a directive of which I quote:

The creation of an ideologically objective school system is one of the most important tasks of the party and the state…Not for nothing have the political Catholics, above all, realized the importance of teaching the young and controlling their spiritual growth and Character building. The pupils should be put in the public schools system and the private schools closed (Conway 1968: 366-69). In a second directive, also in 1939, he ordered that “by the end of the year, no educational institutions should exist which are under denominational influence”. In Ghana we have had similar influence under the CPP government in the Educational Acts of 1961.

It was in reaction to the totalitarian abuse of schooling in Nazi Germany and—though not explicitly in other countries--that the post war movement to define human rights included the right to educational freedom, defined as “the liberty of parents…to choose for their children schools, other than those established by public authorities…. and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions’.

A little reflection, however, makes it clear that the exercise of this right depends upon there being actual alternative forms of schooling among which to choose. Unless there is freedom to operate schools, and to do so with some degree of distinctiveness the right of parents to choose among schools will be meaningless.

The freedom to establish and operate a school and to enroll pupils on the basis of a free choice on the part of parents of the education provided by that particular school implies the freedom to shape the school according to a particular set of ideas about education. It is in this light that Catholic schools, in addition to the many characteristics that it shares with other schools in the country should have other distinctive character which appeals to parents-a character which at the same time serves society’s shared goals. This unique character is identified in the philosophy vision mission objectives of Catholic Education.