Education In West Africa Research Articles

The changing pattern of University Education in West Africa (A case study of the National Open University of Nigeria)

The utilization of technology in education has become a global trend, with West African countries actively exploring its integration into their educational systems. The internet is often perceived as a tool devoid of inherent values, offering the potential to democratize access to learning and overcome traditional barriers. It is widely acknowledged that online technologies hold the promise of addressing educational disparities and social exclusion while creating inclusive and accessible educational opportunities. The Nigerian government, recognizing the limitations of conventional educational methods, has advocated for the adoption of new technologies to reduce the cost of educating a large population of adults who have been excluded from traditional learning channels. This paper provides an overview of the advancements in open, distance, and technology-driven learning, with a focus on The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) as a case study. It employs the social cognitive theory to examine how universities in West Africa are embracing online learning practices, drawing insights from experiences in Western Countries.

Post-Civil War Literary Fiction: A Catalyst for Understanding Sierra Leone's Recent Past, Present, and Future

ABSTRACT: Until very recently, it seemed that a major difference between the literature of Sierra Leone and the literatures of its other West African neighbors was the absence, especially in prose fiction, of a sustained body of work by Sierra Leonean authors. This situation might seem mystifying to scholars of Sierra Leone's social and intellectual history because, after all, that country had played a major and pioneering role in the development and spreading of Western education in West Africa. This fundamental narrative of the inability of Sierra Leone's creative writers to produce high quality literature, in current times, has been seriously challenged by several new authors. This article analyzes the ways in which Sierra Leonean literature has moved from a space in which its earliest writers failed to understand fiction writing as a major outlet to express the dreams, nightmares, hopes and desires of a people to one in which high quality fiction is flourishing. It highlights how the civil war and its dreadful aftermath changed the literary landscape in Sierra Leone in many positive ways.

Improving Citizen Security Education and Awareness in West Africa

Globally, expenditure in defence and security has been rising for the past two decades. Many reasons account for this phenomenon. Among them are increasing threats, and economic and geopolitical competitions. In Africa, not a day passes without security incidents which often results in heavy casualties leading to loss of lives and properties. Security has become a huge developmental challenge on the checklist of almost all countries in the world and this is no different in Africa in general and West Africa in particular. Every year countries in Africa invest billions of dollars in security to ensure that lives and properties are protected. These investments are in the procurement of new equipment, training and capacity building, maintenance and materiel, administration and operations. These expenditures are recurrent and often do not yield direct benefits to the country’s Gross Domestic Product as often expressed by the citizenry. Some have argued that though these huge recurrent expenditure on security are worthwhile, concerns have been expressed about the low level of citizen security education in West Africa. This is because some believe that when the citizens are well informed enough about the security threats and what they should do, incidents of security will be reduced. The paper focuses on the roles of government in citizen security education and awareness and explores the ways that citizen security education and awareness can be improved to reduce security threats and harm to the people.

The French Médersa in West Africa: Modernizing Islamic Education and Institutionalizing Colonial Racism, 1890s–1920s

Abstract This article examines the origins and development of colonial Franco-Muslim education, with specific reference to the Médersa of Saint-Louis in Senegal. Often described as a failed experiment on the part of the French administration, the médersa nevertheless marked the first effort to “modernize” Islamic education in West Africa. This article argues that the médersa evolved, and eventually closed, in tandem with local engagement and the establishment of the racist idea of islam noir. It also highlights the role of Algerians and the Algerian médersa system in West Africa to argue for the importance of a trans-Saharan approach to Islamic education in the colonial period.

How the Brain Processes Numbers: What This Means for Math Education in West Africa

Teaching mathematics in West Africa is critical because of the collision of culture and brain function there. Numerical notions are significantly influenced by West African educational institutions, language diversity, and cultural aspects. Motivation and retention of mathematical concepts may be increased in pupils by Native American knowledge, language resources, and community-based activities. Maths instruction may involve the brain more fully with the use of technology-based techniques and neurodevelopmental research. Both mobile learning applications and digital learning platforms may provide engaging and conveniently available learning opportunities. Information that young people in West Africa get also heavily depends on the actions and engagement of their parents at home. Finding out how different languages spoken in the area, traditional number systems, and teaching approaches impact people’s capacity to understand numbers is the aim of this research. It addresses how, with parental involvement and at home activities, kids may learn mathematics and grow their brains. Furthermore, discussed is the need of cultural relevance in mathematical teaching. Understanding the effect of mental activities on the brain and gaining understanding about neurodevelopment help us to enhance customised learning. We utilised relevant published data (2004–2014) from diverse, reliable databases. The findings imply that to raise children’s interest in mathematics, teacher preparation programmes and technology-based methods should be used. Children in West Africa would therefore at last have more equal educational chances and improved neurodevelopmental results. Keywords: brain, numbers, mathematics, education, neurodevelopment, West Africa

Inclusive education in West Africa: predictors of parental attitudes, knowledge and perceived social norms influencing inclusive practices in Ghana and Nigeria

ABSTRACT The call to practise inclusive education in African countries has coincided with efforts to promote deeper cooperation in the education sector. Ghana and Nigeria have adopted a common curriculum to facilitate the development of people in the West African sub-region. In both countries, while much is known about the challenges faced by teachers and schools in the implementation of inclusive education, little is known about parents’ attitudes, knowledge and perceived social norms regarding inclusive education. In this study, we adapted Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour to examine parents’ attitudes, knowledge and perceived social norms in influencing inclusive practices. One-thousand-and-seventy-five parents were recruited from Ghana (n = 411) and Nigeria (n = 664). They completed the Parents’ Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education scale, which consists of three subscales: attitudes, perceived social norms, and knowledge. Although there was a moderate relationship between the subscales, the participants were positive on attitudes and perceived social norms, but they reported a lack of knowledge about inclusive education. The participants seemed to accept the need for implementation of inclusive education, and they acknowledged the efforts of implementers in practising inclusive education. However, they indicated limited knowledge about implementation of inclusive education. The need for policymakers to prioritise public education is also discussed.

The Struggle of Traditional Religious Education in West Africa: The Case of Mahdara in Mauritania

Mahdara educational institution continues to play significant role in the shaping of Mauritania’s religious and cultural identity. As nomadic entity, it could maintain key position over the course of hundreds of time, and develop a unique African Muslim model of education, culture and mass religious thinking. However, following independence from the French colonial, the rise of Mauritania as nation state, alongside other serious problems associated with climate, modernity, and globalization, the fate of deterioration was inevitable. Today, the intense debate of Mahdara reform continues to sharpen between those proponents of the traditional religious education, modernists, and seekers of middle ground. This paper explores the struggle of Mahdara with those problems to better understand the factors causing its slow decline. This study concludes that Mahdara may even be vulnerable to extinction in the near future should there not be rescuing approach of reform which would blend modernity with tradition system.

Introduction: Learning to be Muslim in West Africa. Islamic Engagements with Diversity and Difference

In West Africa, Muslim learning has historically been shaped by two key engagements: the participation in wider Islamic debates and the co-existence with non-Muslims. In the twentieth and twenty-first century, Islamic education in West Africa was transformed by the imposition of the secular state and Western education. But as Muslims encountered secularism and Christianity, they also increasingly drew on pedagogies that emanated from Middle Eastern and Asian Islam. The articles in this Special Issue illustrate that as Islamic scholars and leaders from different backgrounds engaged simultaneously with the diversity of global Islam and the growing presence of secular and Christian institutions, they developed a multiplicity of educational practices and visions. Thus learning to be Muslim in West Africa reflects both the engagement with Islamic discourse and debates about the boundaries of Islam.

New models for geoscience higher education in West Africa

The challenges facing government-funded higher education institutions in West Africa in response to the demand for mineral resources require a spectrum of responses aligned with the multinational development programs. Efforts to meet the demands of industry and government organisations for skilled staff are undermined by the large numbers of students attracted to Earth Science courses in Africa. The African Union's African Mining Vision, the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and the New Education Model for Africa provide a framework for progress, however, there are only a few concrete examples that allow us to explore the strengths and limitations of different approaches. Two proactive initiatives based on locally-identified needs and that involve local and international collaborations are presented that allow such an analysis. The first, a public-private partnership entitled the West African Exploration Initiative (WAXI), provides graduate and professional training as a result of direct industry and partner government financial and in-kind support. The second initiative known as GEOLOOC is a new online training program supported by UNESCO and the International Mining for Development Centre that unites several West African universities in creating a common resource pool of Earth Science training materials. These activities are being carried out in collaboration with the local universities, and a new professional training centre based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In West Africa, by addressing locally-identified gaps in higher education delivery and by building local and international collaborations, the projects described here are starting to successfully implement new models to contribute to the enhancement of geoscience higher education. These new models complement existing government-funded Higher Education systems by providing them with much-needed support at a time of rapid change.

Review of Education in West Africa

Review of Education in West Africa

Imagining an Imperial Modernity: Universities and the West African Roots of Colonial Development

ABSTRACTThis article takes the formation and work of the ‘Elliot’ Commission on Higher Education in West Africa (1943–45) to reconsider the roots of British colonial development. Late colonial universities were major development projects, although they have rarely been considered as such. Focusing particularly on the Nigerian experience and the controversy over Yaba Higher College (founded 1934), the article contends that late colonial plans for universities were not produced in Britain and then exported to West African colonies. Rather, they were formed through interactions between agendas and ideas with roots in West Africa, Britain and elsewhere. These debates exhibited asymmetries of power but produced some consensus about university development. African and British actors conceptualised modern education by combining their local concerns with a variety of supra-local geographical frames for development, which included the British Empire and the individual colony. The British Empire did not in this case forestall development, but shaped the ways in which development was conceived.

The contribution of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus to Catholic education in West Africa

This article discusses the extent to which the charism and the philosophy of education of Venerable Cornelia Connelly founder of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus are being maintained in the twenty-first century in West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana). Using data gathered from Sisters and former students of Holy Child schools as evidence it seeks to discover to what extent Cornelia Connelly's educational vision is indeed alive and flourishing today in the light of contemporary challenges for leadership in Catholic schools and the many threats posed by modern secular and materialistic society.

Literacy and education in West Africa: from Ajami to Francophonie

Following contacts with Arab nomads and traders and the conversion of West Africans to Islam, Ajami, the writing of African languages using Qur'anic Arabic script, developed as an offshoot of Qur'anic education. Subsequently, both Ajami and Arabic became the transnational medium of written and spoken communication in pre-colonial West Africa. However, with colonization, the linguistic ecology in the region experienced a radical change. Following subjugation by the French military, West Africans had the French language and the French secular education models imposed on them. As a result, education and literacy shifted from (Qur'anic) Arabic and Ajami to French. Ironically, the West Africans who staunchly opposed French colonization became the most fervent advocates of French in postcolonial Africa in their own countries, in other parts of Africa and the rest of the world. However, the attachment to the French language seems so deep that it has obscured any language policies or language in-education vision to effectively address the national language issues in education and anticipate changing language needs in Francophone Africa

Education in West Africa

Education in West Africa

West African College of Surgeons International Visitor. Postgraduate Surgical Education in West Africa: Evolution and Trends

Soon after most nations of West Africa attained political independence at the turn of the sixth decade of the 20th century, visionary surgeons within the sub-region sought to establish formal postgraduate training programs to meet her surgical health needs. The Association of Surgeons of West Africa, which had been founded in 1960, adopted a resolution at its meeting in Accra, Ghana in 1969, to create the West African College of Surgeons (WACS).

Shaping futures and feminisms: Qur’anic schools in West African francophone fiction

This article examines the representation of female education in Qur’anic schools in a selection of West African francophone novels. I argue that in being the earliest form of education for most Muslim women and also a neglected topic of scholarly interest, the Qur’anic school shapes their feminisms in more significant ways than has been acknowledged since scholarly attention to Islamic education in West Africa has mostly focused on the experience of boys in Qur’anic schools, and since theories on feminism in Islam have primarily articulated feminism as a politically oriented project. Using Islamic feminism as a disposition that is not always coterminous with activist objectives within the sociohistorical context of Islamic education in West African Muslim societies, this paper emphasizes the need to focus on forms of female literacy other than secular education.

Missionary education in West Africa: a study of pedagogical ambition

The history of the North German Mission Society (established 1836 in Hamburg) and its activity on the West African coast (from 1847 onwards among the Ewe, in what is now Ghana and Togo where it was and still is known as the ‘Bremen Mission’) mirrors neatly the various phases of the idea of ‘mission’: its composite motivation (Enlightenment, humanism and Pietism); the rejection of a narrow denominationalism (though the management of the mission was from 1850 onwards in the hands of the society’s Bremen branch which belonged to the Reformed tradition); the entanglement of mission and overseas trade; the ambivalent attitude towards imperialism; the shaping of the missionary process as a profoundly educational one; the growing independence of the African church when the German missionaries were imprisoned (World War I) and prevented from returning to their posts (one of the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles); the mission’s eventual loss of usefulness to the African church after 1945, its attempt at re-inventing itself as an agency for development and inter-church aid; and, finally, the Pentecostal rebellion of African Christians (church schisms) against the new theological orthodoxy of inculturation and Africanisation. The focus of the present article is on only one of the facets of this complex narrative – the remarkable attempt of the Bremen Mission actively to transform Africans, through a highly distinctive process of educational intervention, into African Christians. The design of this intervention was drafted by Franz Michael Zahn, the mission’s Director from 1862 to 1900.

The legacy of Christianity in West Africa, with special reference to Burkina Faso

In the following paper, I am going to discuss education and religion and consider the legacy of Christianity in education in West Africa with particular reference to the Evangelical churches in Burkina Faso. The paper will start with a general introduction to West Africa and the place of missionaries’ activities in the region. I will then attempt to point out some different strategies between the British and French attitudes to education with a special focus on Burkina Faso. The quality contribution of the church schools to success in the national examination league tables will be examined. The supportive attitude of government officials to the Christian legacy in the country will conclude this paper.

Universities and medical education in Nigeria

Formal attempts at Medical Education in Nigeria began in 1927 with the establishment of an institution in Lagos for training medical manpower to diploma level. They were trained to practice only in Nigeria. The program was not popular and was discontinued. Following the report of the Elliot Commissions on higher education in West Africa it was decided to establish the University of London College at Ibadan, with a Faculty of Medicine as one of the initial faculties. This was realized in 1948. The debate on what type of doctor to produce for Nigeria ended with the decision to produce high caliber doctors of the same standing as British trained doctors. In 1960 the Ashby Commission on Higher Education in Nigeria recommended the establishment of more training institutions, including those for medicine. This led to the establishment of the University of Lagos with the College of Medicine. The three initial regional governments all established their universities with medical faculties. Medical education has expanded rapidly with the expansion of universities, and we now have Federal and State governments as well as other organizations or private individuals owning universities with medical schools. Regulation of undergraduate medical education has continued to be under the dual oversight of the National Universities Commission and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria. The main problems of the medical schools have been the shortage of properly trained staff and poor facilities, curriculum stagnation and lack of modern teaching and assessment instruments. To tackle these problems training in educational methods should be mandatory for academic staff; there should be greater synergy between the NUC and MDCN, and curriculums should be reviewed to reflect modern trends.

Presenting the Servant Leadership Model as a Panacea to Bad Leadership in Tertiary Education in West Africa

Tertiary education in West Africa presently is fading in value compared with the last two or threedecades when graduates of universities in Nigeria and Ghana were highly rated by world rankedinstitutions in Europe and North America. In many West African tertiary institutions there are chronicand critical challenges impeding quality delivery of education to the citizens. Some of these lead toavoidable wastes in time, financial and human resources. In Nigeria for instance, there are many casesof students’ unrest leading to wanton and unwarranted destruction of properties and sometimes humanlives. In addition, lecturers and non-academic employees in tertiary institutions compound the alreadyendangered system by embarking on industrial strikes to press home their demands for better pay,conditions of service, less government interference, etc. Hence, in West Africa presently, huge amountof valuable resources are wasted in educational institutions of higher learning due primarily to humanand systemic problems associated with bad leadership structure. Crippen (2005) argued that the wayforward is a paradigm shifts in how educational leaders see themselves in the leadership process ofhigher institutions of learning (p. 2). Bennis and Goldsmith (1997) also argued that for transformation tooccur, leaders must recognize the paradigm shift through which they view themselves. In this paper, theparadigm shift we propose is leadership in tertiary educational institutions as one meant to first servethe school community rather than leading it. Thus, advocating the servant-leadership model ofleadership as originally propounded by Robert K. Greenleaf (1970/1991).