Adult Patronage and Use of Selected Museums In Ghana

Abstract

Interest in museums has been greatly stimulated in the past decade by widespread concern for cultural identity. It is the aim of this study to find out adult patronage and how they use the museum for learning purposes. The following Chapters make no claim to being an exhaustive study of museums but they do attempt to give to the general public some conception of the extent to which museums are used by the public and the importance of museum's educational programme. The work as presented is organised in Sections as follows; Chapter One deals with the general introduction to the study, Chapter Two dilates on the background and the setting of the study, Chapter Three is on the literature review, Chapter Four is on methodology and the presentation of analysis and finally Chapter Five deals with the summary and conclusion. The research method used for the study is the survey research but the cross-sectional form of the survey research was used. The cross-sectional type was used to find out the views of respondents on the programmes the museums organize and the use of museums for learning purposes.

The study traces the history of the museum in the Greek city-states. how it was used and how it came to be established in Ghana.

The study established that adults are only prepared to visit the museum when they can See an advantage to be gain from the newly acquired knowledge. Also, the study found out that adults will visit the museum if only the learning conditions there are suitable for adult learning and that the adult visitors' interest in museum exhibits is to a large extent a function of their interest in the subject matter prior to coming to the museum.

The study also realised that visual education assumes great importance in museums and supplies a valuable means of disseminating ideas which would otherwise stand little chance of making an impact on the public consciousness. Similarly, the study revealed that the Volta Regional museum, Ho, lacks a lot of useful learning facilities compared to the National Museum in Accra. It was also found that adult patronage and use of the museum for learning purposes is not very encouraging. Indeed, most people are not aware of the programmes run by the museum. However the greatest obstacle facing Museum Education Personnel in undertaking their duty of educating the public on the role and the functions of the museum is finance since museum is a subvented institution.

In spite of these financial constraints. the study revealed the museum play an important educational role since it is a custodian of cultural heritage, they are used for research and other learning purposes and efforts are made towards outreach programmes. To help the museums attract a lot more of the visitors for the use of the museums for learning purposes. some relevant suggestions have been given in the conclusion of the study.