Thesis (doctoral)--Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, 2004.

Guesthouse accommodation plays an important role in Ghana’s hospitality industry and was therefore the focus of this study as little research dealing with guesthouses in Ghana could be found. The number of guesthouses in Ghana continues to grow and they thus represent an important alternative to hotels. However, these establishments seem to perform poorly and face several challenges such as lack of managerial knowledge, insufficiently skilled employees, poor interaction with customers, and criticisms of the provision of low quality service. The main reason for undertaking this research was to provide guesthouse managers in Ghana with information that might assist them in making decisions about the experience they offer. Such knowledge could make this type of accommodation more competitive and eventually help the hospitality sector in Ghana attract tourists and grow. It is imperative that guesthouses focus on the experience they offer, because contemporary tourism and hospitality literature suggest that successful businesses require a shift from functional and financial interests to a more profound focus on total experiences which embody emotional aspects. It is thus argued that, if guesthouse managers in Ghana do not know how their guests perceive their guesthouse experience, they might make costly mistakes and allocate resources to aspects that already provide quality and value in a functional sense, instead of those elements perceived as providing quality and value in the total experience. Two dominating concepts, namely experience quality and experience value, formed the basis of the examination of guests’ experience with the guesthouses in Ghana. In addition, the relationships between the experience and satisfaction were also investigated. Four experience quality dimensions, namely hedonics, peace of mind, involvement, and recognition, and seven value dimensions were examined. The experience value dimensions included atmospherics, enjoyment, entertainment, efficiency, excellence, escape, and economic value. A proportional stratified random sampling procedure was followed to select the guesthouses for the study. Thereafter, a structured questionnaire was distributed to the guesthouse guests selected by means of convenience sampling. Five hundred and forty one useable questionnaires were received. The guesthouse guests formed the primary sampling unit for this study. The results of the empirical study showed a strong positive correlation between all the dimensions of experience quality and experience value, while the factor analysis confirmed that all these dimensions loaded on a single factor. Therefore, experience quality and experience value cannot be separated, and the resulting single multi-dimensional factor was subsequently renamed, overall experience. The results also indicated a positive relationship between hedonics, peace of mind, involvement, recognition, atmospherics, enjoyment, entertainment, efficiency, excellence, escape, economic value, and overall satisfaction. The inferentially established rank-order of the dimensions contributing to satisfaction can guide managers when allocating resources. Overall, atmospherics was ranked first, followed by economic value. Escape was the lowest ranked dimension. In addition, it was found that, except for escape, all the experience dimensions were perceived as basic satisfiers. This implies that guests will be dissatisfied when provision of these dimensions is inadequate. With regard to escape, listed as a performance factor, guests will be satisfied when performance is improved and dissatisfied when performance is low. A positive relationship was also found between overall experience and overall satisfaction. The latter include the likelihood of return and recommending the guesthouse to others. Finally, structural equation modelling confirmed a model representing the 11 experience dimensions (hedonics, peace of mind, involvement, recognition, atmospherics, enjoyment, entertainment, escape, efficiency, excellence, and economic value) and the relationships between overall experience and overall satisfaction pertaining to guesthouses in Ghana.

The study focused on the impacts and challenges associated with the introduction of FCUBE with particular emphasis on the Capitation Grant and the School Feeding Programmes in the Ashiedu Keteke Sub-Metro of the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. Data was collected from Six Basic Schools in the Sub- Metro under Circuits 12 and 13. This study found out from the participants that the introduction of these policy options even though has improved enrolment and the quality of education is faced with a lot of obstacles and challenges such as access to school, shortage of teachers, economic and social cultural practices etc. It seems evident from the analysis in this study and observations that despite the achievements of government, there still are a number of children out of school in Ghana and being denied the right to education and therefore the goals of universal access to primary quality education cannot be achieved through the linear expansion of existing public schools system alone. One limitation was that the sample was quite small due to limited time and resources. The study contributes to the understanding of what the various education policies say and what really happens on the ground. It provides a foundation for further studies on a more extensive scale so as to get a broader picture of what the education sector really experience, as well providing guidance for the ministry to take actions that make it more friendly.

This study will examine the impacts of climate change on food security in Southern Ghana. Southern Ghana reveals that the district suffers post- harvest losses of about 8 percent of all cereals which hinders Ghana’s food security. Ghana still faces food insecurity due to high temperatures and low rainfall. This research therefore seeks to investigate what local communities of Southern Ghana are doing to address food insecurity problems with the advent of climate change. Several objectives to achieve this goal involves to identify factors hindering food security in Southern Ghana and to evaluate the extent that climate change has affected food security. A qualitative research approach was used by the researcher to come up with community strategies which this research seeks to address. Various conclusions such as community demand for support from the local government, sustainable irrigation programs, availability of pipe-borne water and environmental education were put in place, as possible solutions to the persisting food security problems in Southern Ghana.

Part I covers the historical development of practices and policy in the forestry sector of the Ghana economy. The introduction of forestry into a country that had just settled down to agriculture reveals the struggle between commercial and subsistence agriculture on the one hand, and commercial forestry on the other. The application of a policy that does not take full cognizance of local land ownership externalities heightened the conflict between the two major forms of land use. The analysis in this thesis shows that land reforms are required if enough land is to be put under forestry, and if soil conservation practices are to be adopted by farmers. Foundations on which classical forestry is built and principles of perpetual forestry as advocated by FAO and Commonweath Forestry Conferences are examined and criticized. Economic forces are recognized as determinants of the permanence of forests. The importance of the agricultural sector in the development of the industrial sector of the country is stressed. The role of the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board and the Ghana Timber Marketing Board is criticized. It is concluded that both boards should allow market forces to determine economic values for agricultural and forest products; and that farmers' earnings should be appropriated by them in the first instance to allow for a rise in agricultural earnings which alone can create effective demand locally for forest products. Part II covers current practices in the forestry sector. Conduct of research, problems of industrialization in the light of existing tariff walls raised by the rich markets of the developed countries as well as the problems associated with an underdeveloped, low income economy, are surveyed. It is shown that the economy requires to be pushed forward on all fronts: research; skills; capital formation and markets, if effective industrialization of the forestry sector is to be undertaken. While the concept of maximum sustained yield has been rejected, the thesis does not unconditionally accept the objective of maximizing net gains from forest lands. The thesis accepts that forest policy has to be subordinated to the national economic policy objective of maximizing the national product per capita. Integrating national development and forestry plans ensures that the welfare of the people of Ghana can be maximized. The 'taungya' system of agric-silviculture has been analyzed and criticized. In its place plantation forestry aimed at creating man-made blocks of forests of commercial value is recommended. Integrated utilization of forest raw materials has been noted as leading to the maximization of the contribution of the forestry sector to the national economy. To ensure supplies of raw material to local mills, a Log Export Control Committee has been suggested. Finally, the thesis criticizes the practice whereby forest policy formulation is undertaken by the Forestry Department alone. The urgency of economic development, and the need for subordinating forest policy to national economic policy as well as integrating the two policies, require that, in addition to the forest service, other bodies with interests in the forests should be represented. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

This dissertation is a video ethnography of the enculturation and learning patterns among children on three school playgrounds in the Central Region of Ghana, West Africa. It includes a) a discussion of colonialism on the redefinition of Ghanaian cultural identity in relation to play culture and the school curriculum b) performance-based case studies of six singing games, which comprise a description of sound and structural features and an explanation of cultural forms evident in singing games and c) a discussion on the role multimedia technologies (video, audio, and computer technologies) played in configuring my explanations and the explanations of all participants: children, teachers, and community members. Goldman-Segall' s "configurational validity" is the conceptual basis of this ethnography of Ghanaian children's music cultures. Configurational validity is a collaborative theory for analyzing video documents that expands on the premise that research is enriched by multiple points of view. Performance stylistic features of singing games emerge that reflected the marriage of two music cultures, indigenous Ghanaian and European. These include: speech tones, onomatopoeia, repetition and elaboration of recurring melodic cliches, portamentos or cadential drops, syncopations, triplets, melisma, polyrhythms, vocables, anacrusis, strophic, circle, lines, and partner formations. During play, the children were cultural interlocutors and recipients of adult cultural interlocution as they learned about accepted and shared social behavioural patterns, recreated their culture, and demonstrated the changing Ghanaian culture. The culture forms that emerged include community solidarity, inclusion, ways of exploring and expressing emotions, coordination, cooperation, gender relations, and linguistic code switching. For children in Ghana, knowledge is uninhibited shared constructions; knowledge grows when every one is involved; and knowledge is like "midwifery." I recommended a teaching style that encouraged the expression of children's wide ranging knowledge by a) offering opportunities for cooperative learning through group work, b) encouraging continuous assessment, c) establishing stronger ties with the adult community, and d) recognizing that the ability of children to hear, interpret, and compensate for dialectic differences in closely related languages can be used to enrich the language arts curriculum and also e) recognizing that the cultural studies curriculum can be enriched by the ability of children to re-create hybrid performing arts cultures. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

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Ephraim Amu is a distinguished musician. He is well known for his advocacy on African tradition and culture. Amu's pride in the African personality has earned him a place in Ghana's hall of fame. It was in recognition of these achievements that his portrait was embossed on Ghana's highest currency, the Twenty Thousand Cedi note. But there is more to the Amu story. In this thesis I have drawn substantially on Amu's own works to demonstrate how, in fact, he is an exemplar of mother tongue apprehension of the Christian faith in Africa. Amu showed in his songs, diaries, sermons, letters, addresses and private papers that the mother tongue, in this case, Ewe and Twi can be used to express not only Christian experience but also to formulate theological ideas in an innovative and creative ways. Amu's credentials as "African statesman" and "a self-conscious nationalist" owe not so much to Pan-African ideologies as his understanding of African culture and tradition from a biblical perspective. Amu believed that the entire universe, including the African cosmos, was created by God from the very beginning as kronkronkron (pure), pepeepe (exact), and fitafitafita (without blemish). He wrestled with the problem of (evil) and how this may have polluted an otherwise unblemished creation. Amu also wrestled with the issue of human participation in God's work of creation and the extent to which humankind may have contributed to the desecration of creation. In spite of the pollution, Amu believed that creation can be redeemed and restored to its original status by cleansing with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. This belief led him to adopt a positive stance towards African culture and tradition. Amu demonstrated this particularly in the use of language. Most of his sermons and notable musical compositions are in Twi or Ewe. He kept a diary in his mother tongue, Ewe, for almost seventy years. Amu demonstrated that by using indigenous African languages it is possible to make a fresh contribution to theological issues and thereby present African Christianity as an authentic expression to God and capable of contributing to world Christianity. Apart from language, Amu believed that other elements in the African tradition could be employed to express the Christian faith. It is in this regard that his contribution to Christian worship, particularly the use of indigenous musical instruments, must be appreciated. Amu's realisation, that "There are deep truths underlying our indigenous religions, truths which are dim representations of the great Christian truths", led him to deal with the perception that / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

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