ABSTRACT
In 1987, the Ghana Education Service established the Islamic Education Unit and charged it with the responsibility of attracting Islamic schools to accept secular teachers and secular curricula in their schools. The corollary of sustained government effort to streamline Islamic education was the increasing number of Muslim schools accepting the program nationwide. Hitherto, the perception had existed that Ghanaian Muslims favoured Qur’anic religious learning over secular education. In fact, it is often argued that Muslims oppose and mistrust Western education because of its potential as a Christian converting agent. However, the establishment of an Islamic Education Unit in Ghana with supervisory responsibilities over Muslim-operated secular learning institutions implies that a good number of modern Islamic schools have been established in the country to warrant government regulation. Thus, judging by these developments and given the thought that Ghanaian Muslims have long been opposed to secular education for their children, the progress made by both local Muslims and the Ghana Islamic Education Unit in transforming Muslim schools is revolutionary. It is argued that only in the context of the Muslim position on secular education and of the importance of religious instruction to the community that their ultimate and courageous embrace of modernized education could be appreciated.
