Covid-19 And the Philosophy of Education: Recuperating Ghana’s Triple Heritage

Prempeh C

Published on: 2022-09-26

Abstract

The current novel coronavirus pandemic has significantly unsettled the world. In March 2020, when Ghana introduced lockdown in Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi and later closed down schools, several parents and students were reasonably disoriented. The lockdown regime, which embodies practices such as social distancing and faces covering, has been highly disruptive. This is because human beings are ontological social and find meaning in life through in-person conversation. The social orientation of human beings is accompanied by physical and emotional expressions, usually exemplified in hugging, kisses, and shaking hands. All these aspects of human life have been upended by the pandemic. As an ethnographic study, my paper discusses the social disruption that the pandemic has caused on the school campuses in Ghana. Concurrently, the paper argues for the re-articulation of the philosophy of education by recuperating Ghana’s Triple Heritage to foster social cohesion and conviviality. The paper contributes to the resetting of the post-Covid world from the perspective of educational reforms.