Ghanaian Muslim Women and The Conundrum of Secular Education: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

Debates about the question of why Muslim women lag behind their male counterparts in the access to and acquisition of secular education in Ghana continue to linger among academics and non-academics. Although many scholars have touched on the subject, there has not been a comprehensive analysis of the issue. This paper attempts to provide a history of the Muslim female denial of secular education, especially from the precolonial period to the 1980s. While some girls continue to face denial, Muslim women's activism in the 1990s and beyond brought a lot of changes in the gender stereotyping that had existed in Muslim communities. The paper argues that both missionary/ colonial engagements and gender stereotyping in Muslim communities are responsible for the gender disparity in education among Muslims in Ghana, particularly from the pre-colonial period to the 1980s. Notwithstanding their high population, Ghanaian women, in general, and Muslims, in particular, were denied access to secular knowledge that became the source of social mobility and economic autonomy in the newly formed state. The result was the gender gap in education in Ghana, not only affecting women but the nation at large.