Africa

Vavrus, Frances. 2005. “Adjusting Inequality: Education and Structural Adjustment Policies in Tanzania.” Harvard Educational Review 75 (2): 174–201.

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

Peters, Rebecca Warne, and Claire Wendland. 2016. “Up the Africanist: The Possibilities and Problems of ‘Studying up’ in Africa.” Critical African Studies, October, 1–16.

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

Mukoma wa Ngugi. 2018. “What Decolonizing the Mind Means Today.” Literary Hub, March 2018.

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

Teferra, Damtew, and Philip G. Altbachl. 2004. “African Higher Education: Challenges for the 21st Century.” Higher Education 47 (1): 21–50.

Angela Okune: This 2004 article by Damtew Teferra and Philip Altbachl focuses on the "problems of African higher education" which they see as including the challenges of funding, management, brain drain and language. The authors propose that recognition of these problems can lead to major...Read more

Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) 2018 Call for Abstract for Graduate Student Conference

This call for abstracts is particularly interesting in its framing because it points to the special importance of "deconstructive" approaches in contexts like "Africa."

World Bank. 2016. “Bridge International Academies.” 119876. The World Bank.

Angela Okune: This 2016 brief by the World Bank showcases Bridge International and its education model. The brief states that Bridge is "the first educational organization to address the problem of quality at scale, allowing it to invest heavily in research and technology and to focus...Read more

Whitehead, Clive. 2005. “The Historiography of British Imperial Education Policy, Part II: Africa and the Rest of the Colonial Empire.” History of Education 34 (4): 441–54.

Angela Okune: This 2005 article by Clive Whitehead situates the British colonial education policy towards Africa in the context of the rest of the British empire, especially India.Read more

Mangan, J. A. A. 1993. The Imperial Curriculum (RLE Edu H). Hoboken: Taylor & Francis.

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

Nyamnjoh, Francis B. 2012. “‘Potted Plants in Greenhouses’: A Critical Reflection on the Resilience of Colonial Education in Africa.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 47 (2): 129–54.

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

Subscribe to Africa