Paper short abstract:

Schooling in Africa has long succumbed to sweeping neoliberalism despite persistent calls for Afro-centric learning. This paper engages Ghanaian students as they straddle commitment to ethnic identity and language while pursuing English language proficiency and the lifestyle that schooling promises.

Paper long abstract:

African scholars have been calling for schooling reforms that centre indigenous pedagogies for several decades now. Few national education systems, however, have been intentional about dislodging universalised approaches to learning and refashioning schooling to reflect local ontologies and epistemologies. Moreover, enrolment figures are at an all-time high because citizens are opting for education experiences that promise neoliberal lifestyles and offer a 'competitive advantage' over the less/un-schooled. Perhaps, at the centre of the gap between suggested Afro-centric curricula and current education policy is the debate around the place of local languages in the curriculum and what the language of instruction in 'mainstream schooling' should be. This paper examines ethnographic accounts from Ghana, as well as evidence from other countries in the sub-region, to reflect on how current language policy impacts high school students' conception of indigenous identity and well-being. I present student experiences of liminality in their pursuit of proficiency in the 'foreign' on the one hand, and their connectedness to ethnic identity through 'diminishing' native languages on the other. I also explore the question of whether local languages should feature in neoliberal schooling, and offer 'bridges' for the disconnect between calls for decolonized education and the seemingly 'deaf ears' of the African public.