Educational Policy in Africa (original) (raw)

2017, Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa

For educational goals to be realised, they have to be made more concrete and specific in the form of government policy. Thus, in this chapter, we examine educational policy making in Africa and, in particular, where it comes from. Policy can be understood as the 'authoritative allocation of values; policies are the operational statements of values, statements of prescriptive intent' (Kogan 1975 cited in Ball 1990: 3). But policy is the outcome of an essentially political process because it is about the power to determine what is done and therefore, in its formulation, involves disagreement, conflict, power and control. Elsewhere, the nature of politics was described thus: Disagreement is a marked and inevitable feature of all human groupings. This is true whether it is a family, a group of friends, an institution, a state or an international organisation. Disagreement occurs because people have different attitudes and values, both because they are diverse as individuals and because they differ according to social identities based on factors such as culture, social and economic status, gender, region and religion. There is therefore a need to manage and resolve disagreement and conflict (not necessarily the same as violent conflict) through a decision-making process which provides the rules by which we live. Some have the authority or recognised legitimacy to make decisions on behalf of others while others can influence decisions through the possession of power of some sort-the CHAPTER 2