Educational Land Grants in Industrial Zones: Analyzing the Contestations of Land Gift to Osudoku Senior High School in Ghana's Former Sugar Factory Estate
Michael Gameli Dziwornu
This study examines the dynamics surrounding the gift of land from the defunct Asutsuare sugar factory estate to the Osudoku Senior High School in Ghana, highlighting the challenges that emerge when industrial lands are repurposed for educational use. The research focuses on a unique case where land originally acquired for industrial purposes in the 1960s became subject to multiple competing interests following its partial conversion to educational use. The study reveals how the convergence of industrial regeneration efforts by Shinefeel Ghana Company Limited and educational land use has created multifaceted conflicts. Of particular significance is the company's attempt to reclaim portions of land already gifted to the school for worker accommodation, alongside encroachment by local inhabitants for commercial activities. These contestations are further complicated by environmental concerns, specifically the impact of industrial emissions on the school community, which led to the temporary closure and eventual relocation of some units of the institution. The findings illustrate the challenges in Ghana's current framework for managing converted industrial lands for educational purposes, particularly in cases where multiple stakeholders assert competing claims. The case demonstrates how corporate social responsibility initiatives, such as Shinefeel's construction of classroom blocks while attempting to mitigate conflicts, fail to address fundamental issues of land rights and environmental safety. This research contributes to broader discussions about land administration policy, particularly regarding the conversion of industrial brownfields for educational purposes in developing economies.
Bio:
Michael Gameli Dziwornu is a research scientist with the CSIR-Institute for Scientific and Technological Information (CSIR-INSTI), a public research organization in Ghana. He is particularly interested in crime geography, geographic information systems (GIS), urban studies, migration studies, and the postcolonial geographies of Africa. Michael joined CSIR-INSTI in June 2021 after completing his PhD in Urban Studies from the University of Milan-Bicocca in Italy. Michael’s doctoral thesis focused on the containerization of urban space where he epistemologically deconstructed containerization from global political economy to critical urban studies. During his doctoral studies, he became a visiting research scholar at the Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and HTW Berlin- University of Applied Sciences, Germany. Michael is an alumnus of Suleyman Demirel University in Isparta Turkey in 2017, where he pursued an M.A. in Geography. Michael was also an Erasmus Mundus exchange student at the Pedagogical University of Krakow in Poland, where he researched the geographies of industrial transformation in postsocialist countries. Michael has a B.A. in Geography and Resource Development from the University of Ghana, Legon in 2013. Between 2014 and 2015, Michael served as a research assistant with the Centre for Migration Studies of the University of Ghana.