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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Education and Political Development: Africa since Independence |
Authors: | Kelly, Gail P. Welch, Claude E. |
Year: | 1994 |
Periodical: | Africana Journal |
Volume: | 16 |
Pages: | 3-18 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Subsaharan Africa Africa |
Subjects: | nation education Development and Technology Education and Oral Traditions Politics and Government nationalism |
Abstract: | In 1965, James S. Coleman published 'Education and political development', a collection of essays and commentaries on the relationships between schooling and the building of the nation-State in newly emergent countries. This volume evinced optimism that the problems of these new States were ultimately solvable, in large part through extending formal education in schools. The present essay asks whether the faith in education Coleman expressed in 1965 has been substantiated by experience in the past twenty-plus years in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors conclude that school expansion in sub-Saharan Africa has had little to do directly with promotion of political development. If schools are to contribute to political development in Africa, clearly the institutional capacity of those schools needs to be enhanced, and significantly greater attention needs to be given to curricular design. The significant gaps in access to education that exist, based on region or gender, must be reduced. Until schooling, at least at the primary level, is close to universal, further major steps toward political development will be difficult. But the onus must not be laid only on the educational systems. Expanded and improved education can help improve the situation, but only if accompanied by dramatic changes in the nature of political leadership. Note, ref. |