Abstract:
Contemporary higher education in Ghana and many parts of Africa has
European colonial antecedents. In spite of the many goals that it aspired
to achieve, a preoccupation was to nurture an elite group. Though widely
used, the concept of elite and elitism is vague and hardly conceptualized.
It hoovers from status—occupants of the apex or top echelons of an
organization/society, to consumption—people with immense wealth.
Influence, on the other hand, seems to be a common denominator in both
cases. But, does this capture the scope of the phenomenon? This article
engages people who have worked in different capacities in Ghana’s higher
education space to examine the deeper meanings that could be embedded
in elitism, elicits conceptualizations of elitism, and further finds out how
elitist higher education is in Ghana. Ultimately, the article intends to initiate
a conversation on whether indeed there are elites being produced from the
university system. This study was done with reference to an empirical study
on decolonizing higher education in Ghana
