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Education Research in Africa
Ward Heneveld
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"Synthesis Report: Local Studies on the Quality of Primary Education in Four Countries," submitted last month, reports on studies I facilitated in eastern Africa. I am very proud to have had this opportunity to help research teams of local educators in Uganda, Madagasacar, Mozambique, and Tanzania to carry out their first structured research ever to look at what factors contribute the most to students' learning in their schools. I am also proud of the methodology that my Ugandan colleague and I muddled into existence by helping the first group in the Rwenzoris. The country studies and my synthesis paper will now be discussed at the biennial meeting of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) in Gabon at the end of this month. All the Ministers of Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and the international donors attend this event, so I am hoping that we'll get some of them to pick up on the importance of helping local educators to understand what can improve learning and then of empowering them to get on with doing just that. Most of the people at or near the top of these systems think only of policy, not of what's possible and how to get it done. |