User:Abraham Martei Martey/sandbox

Selecting possible articles
Sector topic: Public Education in Ghana.

Sector article 1: Indigenous Education Sector article 2: Community Education

'''Area topic: Ghana and the Ga-Adange people '''

Area article 1: Education in Ghana

Area article 2: Greater Accra Region

Evaluating two articles
Area article: Education in Ghana


 * The history section of this article provides good overview of the establishment of formal education in Ghana. It however, oversimplifies the history of indigenous education in Ghana with just a sentence. I therefore hope to learn more about the transition between indigenous education systems in Ghana to formal education system as I read and edit the history and overview sections of this article.
 * Some of the links are not working and some also do not directly imply the claims that they are cited to support.
 * Most claims/statements are not citied, making those claims/statements unreliable.
 * Some of the citations are linked to news journals which questions the notability of the sources.
 * Some of the statistics need to be updated to include recent data or to replace estimations with reliable data from notable sources.
 * This article is part of the Wikiprojects: Africa/Ghana and Education. It is rated as C class and high-importance by both Wikiprojects.
 * In this article, focuses on the political powers that shaped and continues to shape the Ghana education system while ignoring the important role that the market economy played and playing in the Ghana education system.

Sector article: Community Education
 * This article lacks citations, so far there are only four citation and about 14 links to external entities(organizations and countries/states).
 * The 14 links to the external sources in this the article do not add to the credibility of the article as they only explain what those entities (organizations, and countries/states).
 * The title "Community Education" implies that the article must have a global coverage, it however only uses examples from Wisconsin and the UK.
 * So far the sentence structures are not coherent, some therefore lack flow in meaning and has some grammatical errors.
 * This article however, provides good introduction into community education, which I believe I can learn from for my practice experience.
 * This article is not part of any Wikiproject so far and it has not yet been rated on importance and quality scale. It was nominated for deletion on on 2007-08-31 but was kept after discussion.
 * The Community Education model focuses on the development of the Person as a poverty action through the use education as an empowering tool.
 * Community Education uses Big Society policies in its' operations and management.

Area source 5:
‘Abnormal’ Urbanization in Africa: A Dissenting View, this paper uses qualitative evidence to make the case that Urbanization in Sub-Sharan Africa, particularly Ghana, is leading to economic growth contrary to urbanization theories. I will use this article to add how urbanization has increased the demand for education in Ghana to the history section of the Education in Ghana article.

Area source 6:
Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana, analyses urbanization in Ghana in between the 1960s to 1970s and the challenges that the rapid urbanization posed to employment and the economy in Ghana during the 1970s. I will use this article to summarize and synthesis the increase demand for formal education in Ghana from 1970s as more people migrated from rural areas for service and or manufacturing sector employment.

Area source 7:
Import Substitution and Excess Capacity in Ghana, examines the consequences of the economic policies that Dr, Kwame NKrumah used to support the rapid industrialization of Ghana the decade after Ghana's independence. I will use this article to synthesis the role that Ghana's rapid industrialization played in the rapid increase demand for formal education in Ghana.

Sector article: Community Education

Sector source 1:

'''Whose voices are being heard? Mechanisms for community participation in education in northern Ghana''', describes the approaches used at the School for Life ( a community education) in the northern region of Ghana. My sector article mainly focuses on community education models in the Europe and America, I will therefore use this article to add a section that describes community education model in Ghana.

Sector source 2:

A rural education teacher preparation program: course design, student support and engagement, uses a case study to explore a Community-based Bachelor of Education program in Canada that aims to help rural pre-service teachers who due to circumstance are not able access teacher educations. This case study will help me better understand some of the difficulties that teachers in rural areas who engage in community education programs face and those challenges can be addressed. I will use this article edit the role of the professional section of the community education article.

Sector source 3:

Toward a New Understanding of Community-Based Education: The Role of Community-Based Educational Spaces in Disrupting Inequality for Minoritized Youth, assess the roles that community education has played in addressing education inequality and how it has helped minority youths in the. I will use this article to create a section in the community educations article that outlays the importance of community education in addressing educational inequalities and also its role in helping minorities.

Sector Source 4:
Schools count: World Bank project designs and the quality of primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa, examines the the variables that positively influences positive outcomes of primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa. This book emphasis the importance of strong parent involvement in the education of their children and its positive outcomes, I will therefore use it to create a new section in the community education article and outlay the literature reviews in this article.

Sector Source 5:
Redefining Parental Involvement: Lessons from High-Performing Migrant-Impacted Schools, uses qualitative research approach to research the effects of migrant parental involvement in the education of their children in four migrant-impacted school districts for about 5 months. Their study finds that migrant parental involvement in the education of their children shows a strong students success indicator even after socio-economic and academic abilities were taken into consideration. I will use this as supporting evidence for the importance of parent involvement in the education of their children in the new section that I will create in the community education article, titled Parent Involvement.

Sector Source 6:
From Moral Supporters to Struggling Advocates: Reconceptualizing Parents Roles in Education Through the Experience of Working-Class Families of Color, uses qualitative case study to examine the involvement of 16 marginalized Latino and African American parents in the education of their children who were in college access programs in a diverse metropolitan high school. This article points out the negative effects of lack of parental involvement in the education of their children, which i would like to add to the section ( Parent Involvement) that I will create in the community education article.

Sector Source 7:
Parents ' Educational Involvement: A Developmental Ecology Perspective, uses ecological analysis to examine the outcomes of multimodal parental involvement in the education of their Children. I will use this article to further summarize and synthesis the outcomes of parent's educational involvement in the community education article.

Sector Source 8:
Barriers to parental involvement in education: an explanatory model, discusses factors such as parent and family, child, parent-teacher and societal as different forms of barriers to Parental Involvement in the education of their children. I will use this to further develop the section, Parental Participation, that I am creating in the community education article.

= Summarizing and synthesizing =

I will add the following sentences/paragraph to the General Overview section of Education in Ghana.
Pre-Independent Ghana was known as the Gold Coast. The economy of Pre-Colonial Gold Coast was mainly dependent on subsistence farming where farm produces were shared within households and members of each household specialized in providing their household with other necessities such as cooking utilities, shelter, home, clothing and furnitures. Trade with other households was therefore practiced in a very small scale .This has made economic activities in pre-colonial Gold Coast a family institution/customs; family owned and family controlled. As such, there was no need for employment outside the household which would have otherwise called for discipline(s), value(s) and skill(s) through a formal education system. Pre-Colonial Gold Cost therefore practiced an informal education(apprenticeship) until it was colonized and its economy became a hybrid of subsistence and formal economy.

After Ghana's Independence in 1957, Ghana's first prime minister Dr. Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana into rapid industrialization which led to lesser emphasis on agriculture and other subsistence economic activities in Ghana. The rapid industrialization in Ghana were however centered in the Southern part of Ghana ( Accra, Takoradi, Tema) therefore making most of the manufacturing and service activities centered around the southern part of Ghana .The  rapid industrialization in Ghana saw high waves of migrations of people from rural areas that used to be actively engaged in agriculture to cities in the Southern part of Ghana in search for service and manufacturing industrial employments .Ghana's urban population increased by 23% between 1960 to 2005 and the rate of urbanization in Ghana between 2005 to 2010 was 3.6%, making Ghana's urban population(51.5%), 3% more than Ghana's rural population(48.5%). Between 1974 and 1982, agriculture dropped drastically; maize production dropped by 54%, rice by 80%, yam by 55% and cassava by 50%.

This text is copied from the history section of Eduction in Ghana.

Education in Ghana was mainly informal, and based on apprenticeship before the arrival of European settlers, who built a formal education system addressed to the elites. With the independence of Ghana in 1957, and changes that Ghana was undergoing from an informal economy to formal economy made universal education become an important political objective in Ghana.

Edited version: I am trying to find source(s) to support the claims in these sentences and I will also insert my paragraphs above between the below two sentences.

Education in Ghana was mainly informal, and based on apprenticeship before the arrival of European settlers, who introduced a formal education system addressed to the elites.Ghana's rapid shift from an informal economy to formal economy made education an important political objective in Ghana.

I will add the following sentence/paragraph to the qualification section of Community Education.
In Canada, a university in Alberta has created a Community-based Bachelor of Education program to prepare teachers for rural community education, making it the first university program in Canada that aims at preparing teachers for rural community education.

I will create a new section titled, Parental Participation, in the Community Education article and add the following sentences/paragraphs:

Cultural divides and deficit thinking creates mutual distrust between marginalized parents and schools which in turn creates barriers to active parental involvement of marginalized parents in the education of their children. Researches also show that parents of high socio-economic status play active and direct role in the education of their children and are more likely to influence school policies that affects their children's schooling whereas parents of low socio-economic status play indirect roles in the education of their children and are less likely to influence school policies that affects their children's schooling. The gap between parents' educational involvement among parents from higher socio-economic status and parents from lower socio-economic status results in a more personalized education that caters for the needs of children from higher socio-economic backgrounds and more alienating and generic education systems/policies for students from low socio-economic backgrounds.

The following practices are necessary for parent and community participation in the education of their wards to be effective; students come to school healthy and ready to learn, parents assist schools with financial and or material support, there are frequent communications between parents and school authorities, parents have meaningful authorities in the schools and they also assist in the teaching of their children. Parents' home based educational involvement such as creating an enabling learning environment at home, helping their children with their assignments, helping their children develop cognitive skills and other school skills and motivating their children to do well in school supports student success .Researches show that multimodal and effective migrant parental involvement in the education of their children increases the test scores of such students and also shows strong student success even after academic abilities and socio-economic status are taken into consideration.

School officials' racial stereotypes, class stereotypes, biases and attitudes regarding parental involvement in the education of their children hinders school officials from involving parents as partners in the education of their children. Also, bureaucracies in the public education systems hinders parents from advocating for changes that would benefit their children. Formally organized parental associations in schools that seeks to increase parental involvement, ignore the cultural and socio-economic needs of minorities, thereby end up contributing to the barriers of parental involvement, especially for marginalized parents. Research shows that high number of marginalized parents do not actively engage in their children's schooling .There is also a wide gap between the rhetoric of best parental involvement practices and actual parental involvement practices. Parental Involvement in the education of their children involves; parenting, communication, volunteering, home tutoring, involvement in decision-making, and collaboration with the community. Effective Parental Involvement treats and or makes school officials and parents partners in the education of their children.