The Christian Apologetic Alliance has rejected calls for Christian mission schools to alter their religious identity to accommodate the religious practices of Muslim students, insisting that such institutions have a right to preserve their founding Christian ethos, traditions and worship.
The Alliance said religious freedom must be respected, but argued that it should not be interpreted as giving individuals the right to redefine institutions established on a particular religious foundation.
Its position comes amid renewed debate over the treatment of Muslim students in mission schools, following concerns raised by the Ghana Muslim Students Association (GMSA) about the compulsory participation of Muslim students in Christian religious activities and difficulties some students allegedly face in observing Islamic practices.
The GMSA has called for greater enforcement of religious-tolerance policies in government-assisted mission schools and urged authorities to ensure that Muslim students are not compelled to participate in religious activities contrary to their faith.
In a four-page statement issued on September 3, 2026, the Christian Apologetic Alliance said it was responding to the GMSA’s concerns and maintained that the debate must take into account the historical and religious foundations of mission schools.
‘Christian identity is their DNA’
The Alliance said the protection of religious rights and human dignity was itself consistent with Christian principles, but maintained that mission schools could not be treated as religiously neutral institutions.
It identified what it described as four weaknesses underlying the calls for Muslims to be allowed to practise their faith freely within mission schools: “a misunderstanding of history”, “an aggressive imposition of interests alien to the established ethos of mission schools”, a failure to appreciate Christianity’s role in expanding formal education, and a failure to distinguish between institutions founded on an enduring value system and those deliberately established as religiously neutral spaces.
According to the Alliance, Christian missionaries played a foundational role in Ghana’s educational development, contributing to literacy, vocational training, healthcare, the development of local languages and literature, and the emergence of an educated class that contributed to the country’s political and intellectual development.
It therefore rejected any suggestion that mission schools should be apologetic about their Christian character.
“Mission institutions therefore apologise to no one for their Christian identity, and they have nothing to prove to anyone. Their Christian identity is not an incidental feature of these schools. It is their DNA,” the statement said.
Religious freedom does not mean changing mission schools
The Alliance argued that students from other religious backgrounds are welcome in mission schools but should be prepared to operate within the institutional framework of those schools.
It said the issue was not whether students had the right to hold religious beliefs, but whether individual religious preferences should override the common rules of an institution they had voluntarily chosen to attend.
“Religious freedom protects the individual; it does not automatically confer upon the individual the right to redesign an institution founded upon a different religious identity,” it stated.
The Alliance further defended Christian worship as an integral part of the educational philosophy of mission schools rather than an activity that could simply be separated from the academic programme.
It said worship and related activities historically contributed to students’ character formation and development of skills such as discipline, service, responsibility, public speaking, teamwork and leadership.
“Christian worship in a mission school is not merely a devotional activity added to education; it is historically part of the formation of character, leadership and practical skills,” the group said.
It therefore described calls for mission schools to exempt Muslim students from such activities as unacceptable, arguing that doing so would remove them from part of the educational model upon which the schools were founded.
The Alliance also rejected the interpretation that participation in the established practices of mission schools amounted to forcing Muslim students to become Christians.
“When this is interpreted as ‘forcing’ a Muslim to become Christian, the underlying problem is a misunderstanding of what missionary education is while simultaneously choosing to participate in it,” the statement said.
‘You cannot demand the fruit while uprooting the tree’
The Alliance devoted a significant part of its statement to the historical contribution of Christian missionaries to Ghana’s education system.
It cited the work of missionaries including Thomas Birch Freeman and highlighted three principles it said underpinned missionary education: Sola Scriptura, which it associated with literacy; Imago Dei, which it said affirmed the dignity of every human being; and Pietism, which it linked to disciplined work, education, service and professional excellence.
The group argued that the academic reputation of many mission schools was inseparable from the Christian worldview that shaped their educational traditions.
It said this was part of what attracted students from non-Christian backgrounds to the schools.
The Alliance acknowledged that Muslim Ghanaians had become major beneficiaries of formal education and had risen to prominence as academics, engineers, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and public servants.
However, it cautioned against what it described as “historical amnesia”.
“The fact that Muslims have benefited enormously from mission education should inspire appreciation for its legacy—not demands that the institutions responsible for that legacy surrender or alter their identity,” the statement said.
“You cannot demand the fruit while simultaneously insisting that the tree must be uprooted.”
Public funding should not erase Christian identity
The Alliance also rejected arguments that the use of public funds in mission schools should require them to abandon or modify their Christian character.
It maintained that mission schools had contributed significantly to the educational foundation on which Ghana’s modern public education system was built.
“Public assistance to mission schools should support education; it should not become a mechanism for dismantling the very ethos that made these institutions excellent,” it said.
It added that public funding did not erase the historical identity of an institution or automatically give the state or another religious group the right to redefine it.
The position contrasts with the concerns raised by the GMSA, which has argued that many mission schools now operate within Ghana’s government-assisted education system and therefore have obligations to respect the religious rights of students from different faiths.
Alliance warns against ‘Nigeria’s experience’
The Christian Apologetic Alliance further warned Ghana against what it described as the consequences of prolonged state interference in mission schools, pointing to Nigeria as a cautionary example.
It claimed that state interference had diluted the distinctive ethos of mission schools in Nigeria and contributed to declining educational standards.
The Alliance also cited reported disputes in Nigeria’s Osun and Kwara states in 2013 and 2021 over the wearing of Islamic head coverings in some mission schools, saying some of the disputes escalated into serious confrontations.
“We do not cite these incidents to inflame religious tensions. We cite them because Ghana must learn before it has to learn the hard way,” it said.
The group warned that continued disputes over institutional identity and religious accommodation could escalate beyond the original issues if not properly managed.
Alliance outlines position
The Christian Apologetic Alliance called on the government, Ghana Education Service, churches, school authorities, parents, students and other stakeholders to protect what it described as the historic and distinctive character of mission schools.
It affirmed that Muslims have the right to practise their faith, Christians have the right to maintain Christian institutions, and mission schools have the right to preserve their founding ethos, traditions, worship and disciplinary framework.
It also said students from other religious backgrounds should be welcomed and treated with dignity, while cautioning that religious tolerance should not be confused with changing the religious identity of an institution.
“Public funding must not be used as a pretext for dismantling the identity of mission schools,” the Alliance stated.
It further argued that “no religious group should seek to transform another religious institution into something it was never established to be.”
The Alliance summed up its position in particularly emphatic terms:
“A Muslim has the right to remain Muslim. A Christian institution has the right to remain 100% Christian.”
It said mission schools were not “religiously empty spaces” waiting to be redesigned according to the preferences of every group that entered them, but historic institutions with defined identities and established traditions.
Describing mission schools as “Ghana’s crown jewels”, the group concluded: “Let us not destroy the crown in the name of sharing it.”
The statement comes against the backdrop of ongoing efforts to strengthen religious tolerance in Ghana’s mission schools. A Memorandum of Understanding on religious tolerance in government-assisted and private mission schools was launched in 2025, with guidelines aimed at promoting safe, inclusive and non-discriminatory learning environments. The National Peace Council and education authorities have subsequently continued sensitisation efforts on its implementation.
The Alliance, however, maintains that protecting religious freedom for Muslim students should not come at the expense of the Christian identity of mission schools.
In its closing remarks, it said it was aware of documented cases of discrimination against Christians in Islamic schools but deliberately chose not to address those matters in the statement.
