The teaching of controversial issues has been widely viewed as preparing students for effective citizenship and, as such, is regarded as inevitable in social studies classrooms if students are to be able to think intelligently and to participate effectively in society. However, the effective implementation of issue-centered education in African…

This report discusses the 1974 African Outreach Workshop planned and coordinated by the African Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Its major aim was to assist teachers in developing curriculum units on African using materials available in their local community. A second aim was for the African Studies Program to…

Agricultural education is a recent addition to secondary curriculum in Sierra Leone. The author lists (1) justification for teaching it, (2) the Government's educational goals, (3) program planning steps needed, (4) tentative curriculum objectives, (5) central concepts to be transmitted to students, (6) guidelines on content organization, (7)…

Three phases mark the instruction of indigenous languages since the precolonial period. Nigeria has more than 200 native languages, and the problems of instruction involve national language policy, the capabilities of the languages to cope with modern life, lack of prepared teachers, lack of understanding of language structures, teaching…

The major objective of the Project in African Music at Howard University was to develop materials for a course in African music designed for General Education curricula in institutions of higher education. The project was expanded to include the development of materials on African-derived music and to make the materials adaptable for use in…

Project Africa's report summarizes: 1) its background and rationale, structure, and staff, 2) curriculum materials design, development, field trial and evaluation, 3) other project dissemination activities. Three different groups of materials were developed by the project. The most comprehensive was a flexible, sixteen-week program of study,…

Outlines the history, goals, and topics covered by social studies in junior secondary schools in Botswana. Questionnaire responses from 150 junior secondary teachers address conceptions about the definition and content of social studies, the qualities of instructional materials, the quality of social studies teachers, and other related problems.…

Information to help educators develop a program of study about Africa south of the Sahara is presented in this guide for use with secondary school students. Appropriate objectives for a study of this region and its people are stated: the acquisition of sufficient information to make contemporary Africa intelligible, the formulation of concepts…

Argues that early African civilizations should be taught to ameliorate the problem of many African-American students first encountering related peoples in discussions of colonialism and slavery. Observes that the absence of materials for middle grade teachers reinforces this tendency. Promotes the authors' teaching packs on the ancient African…

This article describes research on the quality of a computer program designed to help secondary level science teachers in southern Africa create exemplary paper-based lesson materials. Results of this study show that the content, support, and interface of the program combine to form a tool that is considered by both users and experts to be valid…

The articulation of a rationale for Project Africa's instructional program, the collection of materials for improving inquiry-oriented instruction at the secondary level about Africa south of the Sahara, and the preparation of teaching and study guides have been completed. This geographic region, rather than the whole continent, was chosen to…

This is the final report of a technical assistance project conducted in Swaziland by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to implement a Project Agreement between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Government of Swaziland. The purpose of the Project Agreement was to provide assistance in meeting a priority…

A workshop on "Curriculum for Early Childhood Education," held in the summer of 1979 at the Kenya Institute of Education, aimed to familiarize participants with the problems facing early childhood education in Africa. Specific workshop objectives were (1) to familiarize participants with the psychological, social, political, and economic…

This manual was developed for the use of students in a basic training course in systematic curriculum development. This unit of the course deals with the selection of educational materials and provides students with a general background on the kind and type of media that will be most effective in a developing nation. In a discussion of ways that…

Educational curricula have often been shaped more by worldwide standards and modern values than by national or regional influences and may, in some cases, be irrelevant to student and local community needs. This paper explores ways in which curricula can be adapted to a region's specific, social, political, and regional conditions. It begins with…