Angela Okune: In this 2005 article, Frances Vavrus discusses how access to secondary education declined in Tanzania as school fees were introduced and subsidized prices for food were removed during the advent of the IMF structural adjustment programs (SAPs).Read more
Angela Okune: This 1993 volume is a comparative analysis of racial attitudes in the formal schooling of both Britain and its former dominions and colonies. The contributions include chapters looking at experiences in South Africa, Uganda and Kenya. A central theme throughout the work is that a...Read more
Angela Okune: This 1983 paper by Stephen Ball raised three important points regarding the role that British colonial education policies played in African development. He highlighted the demand for education by local Africans; that the history of colonial schooling is marked by the...Read more
Angela Okune: This 2018 blog post by Ngugi wa Thiong'o's son, Mukoma articulates the continued relevance of the book. Borrowing literary critic Adam Beach's notion of an "English metaphysical empire," Mukoma highlights how English continues to be a marker of intelligence and class in Kenya (and...Read more
AO: This article by Peters and Wendland complicates Nadar's concept of "studying up," pointing out the complexity of power hierarchies that go beyond obvious and durable routes to power (e.g. whiteness in humanitarian projects). They argue, this aspect of studying up reveals ethical concerns...Read more
Abstract: " Decolonising the Mind is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity. The book, which advocates for linguistic decolonization, is one of Ngũgĩ’s best-known and most-cited non-fiction publications, helping...Read more
Abstract: "The solution to the problems of education in Africa proposed by Jones and his colleagues was the design of an educational concept adapted to the needs of people, completely oriented towards family and community life. Their proposed 'adapted education' for black Africa would,...Read more
This call for abstracts is particularly interesting in its framing because it points to the special importance of "deconstructive" approaches in contexts like "Africa."
Abstract: " This article draws a comparison between the Portuguese in relation to British and French discourses on overseas educational policies at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century until the 1930s. It focuses on three main colonial educational dynamics: school...Read more
Angela Okune: This 2012 paper by Francis Nyamnjoh argues that education in Africa is based on a resilient colonial and colonizing epistemology, which takes the form of science as ideology and hegemony. This type of education is justified as necessary to keep Africans internationally...Read more