African Union Commission seeks support to make African history compulsory in schools - The African Union Commission has said it will request African Ministers of Education, when they meet in March 2011, to recommend to their heads of state and government to make the teaching of African History compulsory. Head of Education Division Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology at the Commission, Beatrice Khamati-Njenga, said there was the need for a call from the highest level to incorporate the General history of Africa in African history curricula.

“This request will not be unexpected by the ministers because it is also plan of action for the Second Decade of Education for Africa (2006-2015). So the role of the Commission is to report back to the heads of state on what has transpired since they are the ones who had requested for the General History of Africa project,” Khamati-Njenga told PANA in Harare at the end of a five-day UNESCO meeting on Pedagogical Use of the General History of Africa.

The UNESCO expert meeting that ended Thursday was developing a strategy for dealing with problematic concepts and categories of the General History of Africa conceptual framework and developing a common content for African countries’ history syllabi and text books.

Much teaching of Africa in Africa is still Eurocentric and the General History of Africa project is intended to promote teaching of history based on African cultural perspective.

“We will present the outcome of this meeting and suggest to the ministers that they make a recommendation to the heads of state that the teaching of African history is compulsory,” Khamati-Njenga said.

“In fact what may have been lost in all the talking at this meeting is the fact that this project on the Pedagogical Use of General History of Africa is of particular importance to the African Union because this was requested for by the heads of state and government of the African Union because of the vision of the African Union of an integrated Africa, a prosperous and a peaceful Africa which is anchored in its citizens, an empowered citizenry and a proud citizenry,” she added.

And vice chairperson of the Scientific Committee for the Pedagogical Use of the General History of Africa, Mamadou Ndoye, said this was the starting point since the bases for the work on this project was the vision of the African Union on the future of Africa based on integration, prosperity and peace.

Ndoye said after the completion of work on the guideline and curriculum of the General History of Africa, the committee would seek support of the AU heads of state and government to make a decision to implement the project and mobilise resources for the implementation of the curriculum.

“We have tried in this meeting to build something flexible so that each country can find a way to adapt, this was a challenge but we succeeded in having a consensus on what we have to do despite the diversity of culture,” Ndoye told PANA at the end of the meeting
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The meeting was attended by about 65 participants from different background, including historians, history education specialists, archaeologists, anthropologists, experts in education, psychology, curriculum and educational material development and history teacher trainers.

Pana 10/09/2011