Curriculum reform in sub-Saharan Africa: when local meets global

Abstract

The chapter begins with a discussion of the ambiguities and differences between learner-centred, child-centred and competency-based education. It then examines the international pressures on sub-Saharan Africa for curriculum change and the local Southern African historical context and alternative educational experience that, it argues, predisposed Southern Africa to adoption of ideas. It shows how these have not realised in practice. It attempts to explain this on the basis that reforms have focused less on what is feasible in contexts of implementation than in the economic, social and political goals to be achieved and concludes with implications for research.