The British and curriculum development in West Africa: A historical discourse

THE BRITISH AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN WEST AFRICA: A HISTORICAL STUDY – Only recently have African nations begun to make their way towards establishing genuinely autonomous education systems incorporating elements of indigenous culture. The present study examines the historical development of curriculum in British West Africa in its links with the educational activities of the early Christian missionaries and the imposition of British colonial rule. For over 300 years, the curriculum content was essentially European in nature. African interests and cultural practices were largely excluded, as “bookwork” was favored over “handwork”. The colonial curriculum also helped introduce a new social order to West Africa, leading to the rise of new local elites reading, writing, and speaking foreign European languages. This study explores how the idea of a “civilized” person, promoted through the colonial school curriculum, developed new local elites with different sets of values and expectations that often made them strangers in their own societies. It also describes the connection between this curriculum and the repeated failure of education-reform efforts.     

西方矿业公司与英属撒哈拉以南非洲殖民统治的瓦解

西方矿业公司在英属撒哈拉以南非洲殖民体制中占据重要地位,在殖民统治瓦解过程中发挥了各自的影响力。从西方矿业公司对英属中非联邦所产生的作用显示,尽管各国公司影响当地政府、英美政府和非洲民族领导人的措施、步伐不一致,但能够共同维护集体利益,有效施加影响。矿业公司要实现的目标和历史结果之间存在差异,联系列宁帝国主义论,可以揭示出其所反映的时代特征。     

Andreas Goes to Africa: A Comparative Historical Study of the Teachers for East Africa Programs

This article uses a comparative historical approach to examine the Teachers for East Africa (TEA) and the Teacher Education in East Africa (TEEA) programs, an influential educational development effort that involved U.S. and British college graduates in East African schools and colleges during the decade of 1961–1971. Drawing on postcolonial theory and Andreas Kazamias’s humanistic view of education, the “Paideia of the soul,” it explores how U.S. teachers interpreted the education system they encountered in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda at the end of the colonial era, seeking to made sense of a radically different system of schooling. The comparison of U.S. and British teachers’ views on pedagogy in this critical historical period as discerned in the TEA and TEAA archive illustrates deep fissures in the putative edifice of “Western” education.     

Talk about School: Education and the colonial project in French and British Africa (1860-1960)

As a study in comparative colonialism, this research attempts to identify similarities and differences in the French and British models of colonial education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Differences in colonial policy were conditioned to some extent by settlement patterns, the role of missionaries and variations in local politics and economies, but also by the moral stances underlying colonial practice. By calling attention to some of the 'signposts' of British and French colonial education policy, this research attempts to contrast British and French ideas about morality and the colonial project in Africa.     

Education,culture and politics: the evolution of Chinese education at The University of Hong Kong, 1911–1941

The University of Hong Kong (HKU), following its establishment in 1911, has assumed the mission of bridging British and Chinese cultures, to prepare European and Chinese elite youth for political and other professional careers, and thus to improve Britain’s cultural influence in competition with other western powers with regard to China. Dominated by its colonial character and pragmatic orientation, Chinese education at HKU was confined to no more than a supplementary subject at the initial stage. However, colonial crisis and cultural changes in the 1920s and 1930s, together with the endeavours of local cultural and commercial elites, made advanced Chinese education at HKU necessary and possible, and led to an independent unit for Chinese education and Chinese studies being established and strengthened. Organisational and curricular reforms before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 led to further modernisation and solidified the structure of Chinese education at this university, laying the essential foundation for its post-war recovery and development. The evolution of Chinese education at HKU demonstrated well the subtle entanglements of education, culture and politics in a colonial context, through which coexistence and tensions between tradition and modernity, between China and the West, and between the imperial and republican intellectuals were also vividly revealed.     

非洲史研究的数字转向及其启示

从20世纪中后期开始,数字史学逐渐成为国际史学界的一股新潮流,而非洲史同样也在这一时期开始了自身的数字转向。非洲史的数字化既实现了部分宝贵史料的数字化保存,也在非洲史研究方法上进行了数字化探索,还在一定程度上向公众开放。作为非洲史数字化的典范,跨大西洋奴隶贸易研究的数字化进程不仅体现了史料内容的日益丰富、信息技术的不断进步和开放程度的空前扩大,还通过数据库大联通、跨库搜索和数字同行评审体系的建立等一系列颇具开创性的成果,为整个数字史学的未来发展指出了一个可能的方向。同时,非洲史的数字化还有着与欧美发达地区数字化截然不同的特征,那就是由于殖民历史包袱和南北现实差距而带来的数字"帝国主义"威胁以及这其中敏感的道德议题。     

The export of the UGC idea to Africa

The effects of British methods of allocation of resources to the colonial universities on the methods used by the successor states are discussed mainly in relation to Ghana and Nigeria. The discussion is in terms of the intentions and beliefs the national Governments have announced over the last two or three decades. The tension between the beliefs in institutional autonomy and in staff self-government; and the need for national Governments to direct higher education to national needs is discussed in the light of published comment, mainly from local sources, and personal communications. The West African allocative machineries have gone further down the road now being cautiously taken by the British University Grants Committee (UGC); but the conclusion is that although these machineries are not dissimilar in important respects from the British UGC, they are very much local responses to local requirements.     

The historiography of British Imperial education policy,Part II: Africa and the rest of the colonial empire

Part II of this historiographical study examines British education policy in Africa, and in the many crown colonies, protectorates, and mandated territories around the globe. Up until 1920, the British government took far less interest than in India, in the development of schooling in Africa and the rest of the colonial empire, and education was generally left to local initiative and voluntary effort. British interest in the control of education policy in Africa and elsewhere lasted only from the 1920s to the 1950s, as territories assumed responsibility for their own internal affairs as a prelude to independence. Nevertheless, critics were not slow to attack British direction of colonial education in the 1930s and thereafter.In retrospect it is clear that colonial education policy was fraught with much confusion of purpose and lack of resources, apathy and hostility. The literature has ranged from close scholarly studies of education policy in individual countries to passionate and more theoretically based critiques of colonial schooling. But as immediate passions surrounding demise of the Empire have receded, alternative analyses have begun to emerge.     

论莱佛士在东南亚的殖民活动

T·S ·莱佛士（Thomas Stamford Raffles）是近代东南亚殖民史上最重要的活动家之一,因其在创建新加坡自由港方面的贡献而被赞誉为“新加坡之父”。在任职爪哇期间,他通过削弱当地土著王公的权力巩固了英国在当地的殖民利益,改革爪哇土地制度与土地税制度,推行废除奴隶制度的政策。此外,莱佛士还代表英国东印度公司取得了对新加坡岛的控制权,并将该岛建设成具有商业与驻军双重功能的重要据点。莱佛士在东南亚的殖民活动,在客观上促进了爪哇近代经济改革,加速了新加坡成为自由港的建设进程。     

Art Education and the Visual Arts in Botswana

The history of art and design education in Botswana has evolved in a unique way and reflects its British colonial history and post‐independence development. It has involved constant exchange and dialogue with other countries through the employment of teachers, teacher trainers and university lecturers from a variety of European, Asian and other African countries. This dialogue has continued as locally trained art teachers pursue their degrees overseas and return with new ideas and influences. At the same time, the development of local crafts for a global market and the inter‐cultural exchange in the visual arts outside the formal education system are thriving with the help of various organisations and the museum and gallery sector. This article will look more closely at the country context, the history and development of art education and the interrelationships that have evolved over the last two decades. It will show how students engage with the challenge of integrating their African heritage and changing traditions with their development as teachers and artists. It will also consider how closer links between the formal and informal art sectors might be mutually beneficial and demonstrate the potential for art and design to play a role in the social, economic and cultural development of the country.     

Analyzing teaching quality in Botswana and South Africa

This study focuses on quantifying the quality of mathematics teaching in 183 randomly selected sixth grade classrooms: 100 from the North West province of South Africa and 83 from South East Botswana. The teaching quality is measured by coding videotaped lessons for three different components: mathematical proficiency, level of cognitive demand, and observed teacher knowledge. Results suggest that the overall teaching quality is about the same in both regions. Some variation was observed at the level of each component. For example, in the South Africa sample the students engage more in tasks that just involve “memorization” and less in tasks that involve “procedures without connections” in comparison with the Botswana students. Teachers in Botswana implement the official curriculum more faithfully than do those in North West. In both countries most of the learners engaged only in low-level tasks (very little activity involved “procedures with connections”) and teachers demonstrated a lack of knowledge about how to integrate mathematical content with effective pedagogical techniques.     

Welfare and education in British colonial Africa and South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s

Contemporary educational policy discourse in South Africa that seeks to serve the poor and address equity issues needs to engage with the roots of twentieth‐century social reform debates if it is meet its goals. One of the weaknesses of the templates for reform at the present time is that they often fail to engage with progressive traditions which have a long history. Present‐day reforms look to agency recommendations or comparative examples of “successful” emergent economies, but often fail to recognize the value and significance of previous initiatives which sought to address these issues. The long debate over the need for social welfare and educational reform in British colonial Africa has some significance in this regard. The period between 1930 and 1950 marked a key turning point in such policy in colonial Africa, and significant reform initiatives in South Africa from the early years of the Second World War provide the benchmarks for such investigations. The social welfare policies and the educational policy initiatives of the United Party government during the 1940s provide important signposts for such policies. This article attempts to investigate that legacy.     

Educational borrowing as negotiation: re‐examining the influence of the American black industrial education model on British colonial education in Africa

This study explores the extent to which American educational ideas made an impact on policy‐making and practice of education in British African colonies between the two World Wars. The analysis re‐examines the apparent ‘borrowing’ of American black industrial education models for application in Africa. It is argued that, while the view that Americans were successful in handling racial conflicts by means of education at home carried strong symbolic meaning in the colonial political arena, the ideas themselves were not new. The paper focuses on the motivations and characteristics of the people involved in this political discourse and in transferring American and other models to Africa. By doing this, the paper draws attention to a more complex network of factors that were involved in the transfer of educational policies to British colonies in Africa.     

Rehabilitating a whiteness disgraced: Afrikaner white talk in post‐apartheid South Africa

This paper is part of a longer work on whiteness in post‐apartheid South Africa, which analyzes the discourses resistant to transformation in the country, labeled “white talk.” Based on a discourse analysis of the 2001 letters to the editor of Rapport newspaper, a national Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, this paper focuses on aspects of “white talk” within Afrikaans speaking South Africa.

Afrikaner whiteness has an affinity with subaltern whiteness, in that Afrikaners contended with the more powerful forces of the British Empire throughout their history. As a resistant whiteness, the whiteness of the Afrikaner has historically been rolled into ethnic/nationalistic discourse. The current moment in South African history presents a crisis to Afrikaner identity similar to the time of dislocation that saw the original discursive suturing of Afrikaner identity into nationalism. But now the worldview has imploded; Apartheid is the “other” of the New South Africa; Afrikaners are perceived to be in need of “rehabilitation.” Certain ethnic anxieties are pervasive, and the paper explores four of these. White talk in this context attempts to do two things: (1) to re‐inscribe the Afrikaner mythology that secured a special place for the Afrikaner in the political, economic, and social life of the country, so that the ground gained through the apartheid era of systematic Afrikaner advancement is not lost in the new social order, while (2) presenting Afrikanerdom as compatible with the New South Africa.     

Decolonising religious education in sub-Saharan Africa through the prism of anticolonialism: a conceptual proposition

ABSTRACT

Through the lens of an anticolonial (as opposed to postcolonial) analytical framework, this conceptual paper examines decolonising efforts (and failures) in Religious Education (RE) as a school subject in post-independent sub-Saharan Africa. It critiques the missionary/European epistemological hegemony that continues to render RE a colonial rather than a postcolonial project. Beyond rhetoric of the impact of colonialism, the paper laments the perversity of a ‘colonial caged mentality’ affecting the conceptualisation of RE in what is supposed to be a postcolonial milieu in which Africans should design school curricula that suit their particular needs. It calls for the re-conceptualisation of RE de-linked from colonial/Eurocentric thought patterns and presents an ‘envisioned’ decolonised RE (post-confessional, inclusive and multi-faith) that speaks to the political and socio-cultural reality of a postcolonial environment in sub-Saharan Africa. The argument in this paper is that sub-Saharan Africa should yearn for a paradigm shift not only to ensure the decolonisation of the RE curriculum, but also crucially to challenge embedded colonial residues inherent in stakeholders ‘manning the gates’ ensuring that decolonised RE is supported and implemented effectively in the curriculum and schools.     

地方课程的发展检视与时代再建构

地方课程是基础教育课程体系中的有机组成部分。其发展大致经历了四个阶段。在发展过程中还存在一些问题,在基础教育课程体系中,地方课程是个薄弱环节。对地方课程发展的检视,应聚焦于课程定位,关键是对“地方性”的再讨论,不妨将“地方性知识”作为课程支撑理论之一。但要从中国文化出发,进行时代转换,厘清“国家性”“民族性”与“地方性”,“一体”与“多元”,“和”与“异”等关系,把握好国家课程与地方课程等关系。要在基于与超越“地方性”中,进行地方课程的再建构,将地方课程纳入更高水平的育人体系,探索地方课程落实立德树人根本任务的实现方式。     

Blurring boundaries, distant companions: non-kin female caregivers for children in colonial India (nineteenth and twentieth centuries)

This paper examines the history of child-care by non-kin, “non-family” members and their representations in colonial India. It focuses primarily on Bengal and relies on several genres of literary documents. Bengal harboured the seat of the British imperial capital in the city of Calcutta until 1911 and its culture was shaped in unique ways compared with other Indian cities. Based on a reading of select literary documents such as European advice manuals and Bengali personal narratives, the paper argues that the relationship between caregivers and children in colonial households attests to the building of new ties and deep ambiguous, multi-dimensional relationships with non-kin members thereby revealing the plasticity of Indian families where sociocultural boundaries were blurred and intimate relationships forged. Beginning with the literary representation of a wet-nurse in Mahasweta Devi's short story Breast-Giver, the paper delves into the world of European and Indian accounts to recuperate the history of the caregivers. It demonstrates that despite the emphasis of recent scholars that the construction of a respectable middle-class identity was based on a sharp distinction from lower social groups, such as working women and prostitutes, the history of child-care by hired domestics reveals the sharing of a common world by different caste-class groups and the interpenetration of the two domains of culture.     

Environmental education in southern Africa: a case study of a secondary school in the Okavango Delta of Botswana

This study explored the extent to which teachers integrate environmental education and local environmental knowledge into the curriculum of a secondary school in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. In doing so, the study explored the potential value of place-based education in redressing concerns brought to light in postcolonial critiques of education in southern Africa. The study found that teachers sought to integrate environmental education into the curriculum through lessons that included references to local place names and local flora and fauna, lessons addressing issues related to environmental resource management in the region, and the acknowledgment and celebration of traditional lifestyle activities in the schools. The study also found that efforts to integrate environmental education into the curriculum were limited by a lack of educational resources needed to support these endeavors as well as a lack of adequate teacher training promoting this educational goal. The results also illustrate the potential value of place-based education in redressing the legacy of southern Africa’s colonial past in schools in Botswana and southern Africa.     

从碑文看地方精英在二仙信仰中的教化作用

二仙是晋东南地区的一个地域性崇拜神。对于不同的社会阶层,它承载着不同的象征意义和作用。民间百姓看重二仙有求必应之“灵”,而统治者更看重二仙在维护国家安定上的“功”。统治者若想借助二仙来加强自身对于晋东南百姓的影响、扩大统治基础,就必须打破“功”与“灵”之间的断层。处于朝廷与百姓之间的地方精英就承担起了打破断层、搭建桥梁的作用。在梳理历代二仙碑文的基础上,探究地方精英如何通过增添二仙经历、丰富二仙形象、改变成仙方式的手段打破“功”与“灵”之间的隔阂,使二仙信仰既利于国家对晋东南地区的统治,又在顺应百姓需求的同时,实现其教化目的。     

Organizing the University–Industry Relationship: A case study of research policy and curriculum restructuring at the North‐West University in South Africa

A major requirement for transformation contained in the new education policy in South Africa is that the graduate outputs of the higher education system should match the needs of a modernizing economy. This paper addresses the organizational aspect of university–industry relationships that is an element of the transformation. In empirical terms, it reflects upon the policy of the North‐West University in South Africa, as embodied by means of the introduction of the Business Mathematics and Informatics (BMI) curriculum and research. Empirical results indicate that the number of students who opted for mathematics had increased dramatically. The majority of graduates delivered by the BMI programme are employed in the financial sector, both nationally and internationally. This paper indicates that the organization of university–industry relationships enforces a difficult institutional balancing act that attempts, on the one hand, to meet the benchmark of international scientific indicators, and on the other hand, “fitness for purpose” in the local context.