During the end of our first week, the Media in Ghana cohort took a trip to Anani Memorial International School, where we were greeted with smiles, song and dance from students and teachers alike. Leslie explained to us that this was one of the more expensive and prestigious schools in the area, but that they definitely still struggled in terms of access to resources and the retention rate for progressing to secondary school.

As the student performances commenced, other children (the majority of whom happened to young girls) began to gather around the wire-covered windows and peer inside the classroom. This moment was just one of many that emphasized how different two individuals’ experiences can be in such close proximity.

During our last few moments at the school, I began to wonder what made this school an international one. (As someone who went to an international school myself, I wondered– are there students from multiple countries here? Is it an international curriculum? How would that vary from a Ghanaian curriculum?) As I raised this question out loud on our way out, a member of the group mentioned to me that the students were taught both English and French at school, and so we assumed that was what made the school international– its bilingual curriculum.

I didn’t think much of the ‘international school’ label until I began seeing it everywhere we went– even when traveling outside of Accra. I had the opportunity a week later to ask a coworker who is involved in education in Ghana about the popularity of international schooling and what accounted for it.

My colleague explained to me that what made the schools international was an international curriculum– programs like the International Baccalaureate for secondary schools specifically, which of course incorporated multiple languages in classes. He continued, to my surprise, saying that the appeal of the ‘international school’ label was so great in Ghana due to the lack of faith in Ghanaian education programs. By attaching the ‘international’ label, schools were thereby distancing themselves from the Ghanaian education system, thus elevating their reputation in terms of how elite the school was, even though at some schools the curriculum may not be too far from a non-international Ghanaian curriculum. When it came down to it, he explained, it has more to do with the label because of the positive connotation Ghanaians associate it with. Many Ghanaians feel that the Ghanaian education system has failed them, and that this was their way of ‘fixing’ or ‘overcoming’ that issue.