This paper attempts to critically examine the approaches that were employed by Africans in their knowledge, skills and attitudes acquisition before, after and during colonialisation of the continent. The paper looks at three distinctive epochs from which the perfect understanding of how learning in Africa transformed could be concluded. It is…

This study examines how and why peoples of African descent access and utilize community-based pedagogical spaces that exist outside schools. Employing a theoretical framework that fuses historical methodology and border-crossing theory, the researchers review existing scholarship and primary documents to present an historical examination of how…

The purpose of this study was to explore the practice of Farmer-Field Schools (FFS) theoretically framed from the perspective of transformative learning theory and non-formal education (NFE). Farmer-Field Schools are community-led NFE programs that provide a platform where farmers meet regularly to study the "how and why" of farming and…

"Koladeras" are women who use call and response in impromptu songs that may contain proverbs, stories about the community, their life experiences, and who and what they see in their world from their own perspective. Via qualitative methods of (auto)ethnography, personal and life story narratives, and interviews, I look at how…

This case study analyzes the introduction of democracy and human rights into the educational program of Tostan, a nongovernmental organization working in Africa. The authors show how Tostan's original educational approach created a meaningful context for integrating democracy and human rights into its curriculum, a process that took place from…

In Africa, as in many countries of the South, democratization is sometimes perceived as a process modeled upon outside--and specifically Northern--experience. Formal civic education programs in those countries arguably reflect the same bias and have not always been notably successful. Yet there are rich patterns of civic involvement and democratic…

Experiences of developing nations are used to formulate three types of nonformal education: as complement, satisfying needs unfulfilled by the school system; as alternative, using traditional or indigenous learning; and as supplement to the formal system. Nonformal education is analyzed across nations as system, setting, or process. (SK)

Understanding and appreciation of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are essential for promoting sustainable agriculture development. IKS provides a cultural basis for nonformal agricultural programs that is absent in technology transfer approaches. (SK)

Argues that the present crisis of basic education for young people in Africa reveals problems that are more fundamental than enrollments, inputs, and costs. Maintains that non-conventional approaches to learning, associated with non-formal and distance education, have important but distinct contributions to make to the reform of mainstream…

The involvement of learners in planning their own programs is central to continuing education. The issues raised by the application of this principle are examined through case studies of several rural African communities. (SK)

Describes a workshop held in Zambia in August 1979, to disseminate among performing artists and rural development workers skills for using the performing arts to communicate information on problems related to agriculture, health, and community development. Over 70 participants from the U.S., Canada, Botswana, Lesotho, Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia…

A study of nonformal education providers in Ghana, Senegal, and Burkina Faso identified government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and for-profit organizations. Decentralization has increased nonformal education. Most projects involve multiple providers with various actors playing different roles. The lack of process-oriented projects…

This article presents West and East African nonformal education projects as a platform from which to view the interrelationship of participation and transformation in the educational experiences of community, NGO, and state participants. In the context of neo-liberal pressures, carried by an international free-market movement in the 1980s, a wave…

Education policy in sub-Saharan Africa is predicated on human capital assumptions and therefore promotes the expansion of formal education as a way to promote economic growth. As a result, formal education is valued primarily as a private consumer good, a form of cultural capital that allows some to get ahead and stay ahead, rather than as a…

Provides 426 unannotated entries from 21 journals published in 1982 (second half). Has sections on adult and nonformal education, general comparative education, educational planning and reform, general studies on comparative topics, higher education, the Third World in general, Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean,…