This book addresses major sociological issues in sub-Saharan African education today. Its fourteen contributors present a thoroughly African world-view within a sociology of education theoretical framework, allowing the reader to see where that theory is relevant to the African context and where it is not. Several of the chapters bring a much-needed cultural nuance and critical theoretical perspective to the issues at hand. The sixteen chapters thus aim to be of interest internationally, to those who work in such fields as social and political foundations of comparative and international education, and development studies, including university professors, teacher educators, researchers, school teachers, tertiary education students, consultants and policy makers.
"Since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 Americans have viewed school integration as a central tenet of the black civil rights movement. Yet, school integration was not the only-or even always the dominant-civil rights strategy. At times, African Americans also fought for separate, Black-controlled schools dedicated to racial uplift, community empowerment, and self-determination. An African American Dilemma offers a social history of debates over school integration within northern Black communities from the 1840s to the present. This broad geographical and temporal focus reveals that northern Black educational activists vacillated between a preference for either school integration or separation during specific eras. Yet, as there was never a consensus, this study also highlights the chorus of dissent, debate, and counter-narratives that pushed families to consider a fuller range of educational reforms. A sweeping historical analysis that covers the entire history of public education in the North, this study complicates our understanding of school integration by highlighting the diverse perspectives of Black students, parents, teachers, and community leaders all committed to improving public education. It finds that Black school integrationists and separatists have worked together in a dynamic tension that fueled effective strategies for educational reform and the black civil rights movement. This study draws on an enormous range of archival data including the black press, school board records, social science studies, the papers of civil rights activists, and court cases"--
Using the system-wide educational reform implementation model, this book interrogates the ramifications of the Education for All movement on quality, equity, and learning outcomes in six African nations: Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. It opens the possibilities for new approaches to Education for All in the context of constrained resources, unstable political climates, and the agency of local communities.
Desperate poverty is perhaps the greatest challenge facing Africa. Over the past 30 years, while the rest of the world has enjoyed unprecedented economic growth and prosperity, African countries have grown poorer. Today, more than 40 percent of the people living in sub-Saharan Africa subsist on less than $1 a day. This book explains the causes of Africas economic stagnation and discusses the many ways in which grinding poverty contributes to a reduced quality of life for Africans. The book also explores methods that current leaders and international organizations are using to help reduce poverty in Africa.
Under-Education in Africa: From Colonialism to Neoliberalisma collection of edited essays on diverse aspects of educational systems that were written over a period of four and a half decades. With the focus on Tanzania, they cover education in the German colonial era, the days of Ujamaa socialism and the present neo-liberal times. Their themes include social function of education, impact of external dependency on education, practical versus academic education, democracy and violence in schools, role of computers in education, effect of privatization on higher education, misrepresentation of educational history, good and bad teaching styles, book reading, the teaching of statistics to doctors and student activism in education. Two essays provide a comparative view of the situation in Tanzanian and the USA. Deriving from the perspective of an activist educator, these essays connect the state of the education system with the society as a whole, and explore the possibility of progressive transformation on both fronts. They are based on the author's experience as a long term educator, original research, relevant books, newspaper reports and discussions with colleagues and students. The author is a retired Professor of Medical Statistics who has taught at colleges and universities in Tanzania and at universities in USA and Norway.
Exemplary stories of innovation from around the world In an age of rising inequality, getting a good education increasingly separates the haves from the have nots. In countries like the United States, getting a good education is one of the most promising routes to upper-middle-class status, even more so than family wealth. Experts predict that by 2030, 825 million children will reach adulthood without basic secondary-level skills, and it will take a century for the most marginalized youth to achieve the educational levels that the wealthiest enjoy today. But these figures do not even account for the range of skills and competencies needed to thrive today in work, citizenship, and life. In a world where the ability to manipulate knowledge and information, think critically, and collaboratively solve problems are essential to thrive, access to a quality education is crucial for all young people. In Leapfrogging Inequality, researchers chart a new path for global education by examining the possibility of leapfrogging—harnessing innovation to rapidly accelerate educational progress—to ensure that all young people develop the skills they need for a fast-changing world. Analyzing a catalog of nearly 3,000 global education innovations, the largest such collection to date, researchers explore the potential of current practices to enable such a leap. As part of this analysis, the book presents an evidence-based framework for getting ahead in education, which it grounds in the here-and-now by narrating exemplary stories of innovation from around the world. Together, these stories and resources will inspire educators, investors, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, and policymakers alike to rally around a new vision of educational progress—one that ensures we do not leave yet another generation of young people behind.
Challenges and Prospects in African Education System: The general idea this book is trying to disseminate is to inform readers about the compelling challenges and prospects in African system of education. As we all know, when issues of Africa educational system is raised, the first set of thoughts that come to mind is decline in standard, deterioration of facilities, examination malpractices, cult crises or school-based violence, shortage of teachers, underqualified teachers, and poor teachers' performance, which results in poor learning standards, lack of classroom discipline that is exacerbated by insufficient resources and inadequate infrastructure, failure of appropriate inspection and monitoring, and confusion caused by changing curricula without proper communication and training. All these have led to massive demoralization and disillusionment among teachers and a negative and worsening perception of African system of education. This, therefore, calls for in-depth analysis aimed at tutoring every stakeholder in education on how their action and inactions have individually and collectively contributed to the collapsing state of education in Africa. However, the prospect is that Africa's recovery and sustainable development can only be guaranteed through expansion and sustenance of both quantitative and qualitative-of the continent's stock of human capital through education. In order for education to realize its key role in development, it must be provided to the younger segments of African society as quickly as human and financial resources permit, with the ultimate goal of developing a comprehensive, meaningful and sustainable system of education at all levels and for all age groups. This is the message that this book puts across in the six knitted sections.
This book examines the critical aspect of quality assurance maintenance of competitive-standards in African higher education. It explores both the micro and macro-levels of continental African higher education regulatory authorities, and analyses different institutional, regional and national practices for moving towards continental quality assurance approaches. Contributed to by scholars across Eastern and Southern Africa, the book considers conceptual, practical, epistemological and policy dimensions of quality and quality assurance, especially in relation to higher education in Africa. It therefore draws on research and local expertise to open up debate about how to assure and enhance the quality of higher education, providing a comprehensive review of eight countries and considers societal challenges. It aims to satisfy the need of more thoughtful and critical works on African education as produced by African educators. The uniqueness of this book lies in integrating both the theoretical and practical dimensions of quality to devise appropriate strategies for ensuring quality and standards in higher education in continental Africa and beyond. This authoritative book advocates for a timely discussion around the prpvision of good quality higher education and research in African universities, and will be of great interest to academics, policy makers, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of higher education, comparative education and African studies.
Virtually all countries in the world are struggling to provide the necessary resources to Higher Education. The challenges are particularly complex for economically poor countries in Africa, which have recorded massive expansion in the past decade. This book analyzes the state of funding and financing higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa.
