Africanizing the School Curriculum

"Africanizing the School Curriculum offers insights into decolonizing education as a form of critical praxis, moving from theory to action. With strategies and solutions to achieving equitable and accessible education for all, this book would be beneficial for any teacher, equity liaison, school leader or researcher who believes in the transformative power of education, and in the fundamental right of all students to access, participate and benefit from all aspects of the educational experience." (Full review available at Education Review.)

“A profound, insightful and scholarly discourse on transforming and decolonizing colonial school contexts and curriculum that have continued to neglect the lived experiences, voices, histories and cultures of African educators and learners. Afful-Broni, Anamuah-Mensah, Raheem, and Dei have carefully compiled a volume that addresses and acknowledges that African voices and cultures matter in educational contexts. Their collection will be of interest to stakeholders interested in transforming and Africanizing school curriculum and school contexts.”

Edward Shizha, Professor in Youth and Children’s Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford

“Africanizing the School Curriculum is an outstanding work that impressively persuades us to shift the way we perceive, interact with, and locate African education and its curricular designs and outcomes. By insisting, in both its descriptive and analytical formats, on centering contemporary schooling, learning and related epistemologies, on the continent’s rich Indigenous contexts, this Reader distinguishes itself by concretely affirming the urgency of transformative curricular, policy and counter-racism possibilities. It is with this topical and temporal immediacy that Africanizing the curriculum represents the best current critical intervention in the area, and will surely benefit scholars, students and policymakers.”

Ali A. Abdi, PhD., Professor in the Department of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC

“In the African worldview, education in all forms is a right but not a privilege. It is a natural way of life, a must happen and a must have—the way of life and socialization of our people. This work on Africanizing education is the solution to achieving sustainable education and development in its real sense. The human resource development and the unemployment issues that we face as a result of providing what I call an ‘artificial’ education does not fit into the natural life of the African. I can’t wait to see a full implementation of the solutions provided in this work. That way, there will be minimal if not zero, unemployment, and most critically, the potential of Africa and Africans will be unleashed as we become fully equipped in our own style to utilize the human and material resources that abound us.”

Prof. Olivia A. T. Frimpong Kwapong (PhD), Department of Adult Education and HR. Studies Dean, School of Continuing and Distance Education College of Education, University of Ghana

Introduction
Africanizing the School Curriculum: Promoting an Inclusive, Decolonial Education in African Contexts: An Introduction
Anthony Afful-Broni, Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, Kolawole Raheem, and George J. Sefa Dei

Chapter 1
Decolonizing Knowledge in the Bosom of the “Marketplace”: Makerere University Scholars in the Age of the National Resistance Movement’s Neoliberal Policies (1989–2007)
Nakanyike Musisi

Chapter 2
An Antiracist Education Critique of Curriculum Policy Reform in Postapartheid South Africa
Samiera Zafar

Chapter 3
Africanizing the Ghanaian Education System: Learning Through the Prism of an Africentric System of Thought
Patrick Radebe

Chapter 4
Decolonized Curriculum in Colonized Contexts: Assessing Ghanaian Public Schools’ Role in the Decolonization Agenda
Richardson Addai-Mununkum and Nyuiemedi Agordzo Edoh-Torgah

Chapter 5
Indigenous African Philosophies as a Critical Thinking Pedagogical Tool for Schooling and Education
Isaac Nortey Darko, Paul Banahene Adjei, and Chloe Weir

Chapter 6
Spirituality and Self-Care Among Ghanaian Social Workers: Lessons for Africanizing Social Work Education
Paul Banahene Adjei, Isaac Nortey Darko, Sulemana Fuseini, and Abigail Adubea Mills

Chapter 7
Contextualized Role-Play, Inquiry, and Eco-Management in Teaching Environmental Education in Junior High Schools in Ghana
Louis Atsiatorme and Kolawole Raheem

Chapter 8
Global Anti-Blackness and Resistance: Implications for Educating African Learners
Rowena Linton

Chapter 9
How the Mainstream Media Signified Ben Johnson: A Tale of a Black Canadian Sports Hero Turned Jamaican Villain and the Implications for Black Students
Patrick Radebe

Chapter 10
Rethinking Curriculum Through Critical Blackness and African Indigenous Knowledges: A Black Educator’s Response
Janelle Baptiste-Brady

Epilogue
Connecting Missing Links: A Voice From the Diaspora
Rukiya Mohamed

Contributors

Index

NOTE: Table of Contents subject to change up until publication date.

Anthony Afful-Broni

Anthony Afful-Broni is a Professor and Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana. He was a consultant to the Academic Quality Assurance Unit of the University of Ghana. Professor Afful-Broni is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Educational Leadership, Ghana. He is a specialist in Time Management and still facilitates workshops on Time Management, Staff Development and Leadership in universities locally and internationally. Professor Afful-Broni led a team that ran training for the West African College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Jophus Anamuah-Mensah

Jophus Anamuah-Mensah is a science education expert, tertiary education consultant with over 45 years in academia as university researcher, teacher, administrator, policy analyst and national and international consultant. Professor Anamuah-Mensah’s university leadership positions have included six years as Head of Department of Science Education, three years as Dean of Faculty of Education, two years as Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, and nine years as Principal and foundation Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba. Contributions to national development included chairing and producing the blueprint for the 2002 President’s Committee on Review of Educational System in Ghana. Professor Anamuah-Mensah research has centred on crafting the concept of community knowledge system to improve STEM education that has now been introduced into the school science curricula to gradually create awareness of the value of our endogenous activities.

Kolawole Raheem

Kolawole Raheem is the Head of the Centre for School and Community Science and Technology Studies (SACOST) at the Institute for Educational Research and Innovation Studies (IERIS), University of Education, Winneba, Ghana. He worked for many years as a Special Researcher at the Institute for Educational Research and the Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Professor Raheem is a member of the Advisory Board for the Lagos State University (LASU), Africa Centre of Excellence, for Innovative and Transformative STEM Education (LASU-ACEITSE)

George J. Sefa Dei

Ghanaian-born George J. Sefa Dei is Professor of Social Justice Education and Director of the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). He has written extensively on anti-racism education, minority youth and schooling, Indigenous knowledge, Blackness and Black Indigeneity.