Education in Africa

I am sure I was not the only American that as a child dreamed of not having to go to school any more and counted down the days to Christmas and spring break. Education is something that we take for granted here, in America. We do not realize how lucky we are to be forced to go to school. In other countries, such as Africa, children’s biggest dreams are to be able to go to school and be educated. Which is something most children in Africa do not get to experience. There are over 46 million children in Africa that have never even been in a classroom and 40% of school aged children do not attend school. How can this be you may ask, it is because a lack of classrooms, teachers, supplies, and ultimately monetary funds.

While education in Africa is not as good as it should be, it is much better than it was. Recently there has been a large initiative toward increasing the amount of children who attend school. Many countries, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have all increased aid to African countries for educational purposes. There are also many private donations, for example Oprah Winfrey has built a school for girls in South Africa.

Even with the building of school houses there is still a problem of educating the students. Since most people in past generations were not educated it can be hard to find teachers. The low amount of teachers and high amount of students makes the student to teacher ratio 44-1, on average. In some areas the student teacher ratio is as high as 126-1. The Africa Education Initiative is helping to increase the amount of teachers; in 2003 they trained over 8,000 new teachers and over 16,000 existing teachers.

The education system in Africa is not hopeless though. As Africa continues to develop the education system will develop with it and also help Africa develop from having better educated citizens.

Source Links:

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sectors/ed/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/africa/29iht-mali.4051275.html

Rituals of Sub-Saharan Africa

Spiritual beliefs have always been an interest of mine, as mentioned in my previous post, so I thought it would be interesting to discuss the beliefs of Sub-Saharan Africans.
Africans, like many other civilizations, have a way to deal with “tough times” and understand the meaning of life. This process or belief is known as divination for Sub-Saharan Africans. The origin of this belief originated from China during the twelfth century BCE. Divination has many different forms, but all forms of practice have the same central idea, the search for the meaning of life and understanding suffering and death.
Much like many forms of religion, divination is practiced on a regular basis. For many Sub-Saharan Africans, divination is a daily aspect of their lives. Diviners or friction oracle are the religious leaders who individuals may bring questions and concerns to.
The difference in the form of divination comes to play when looking at what or who is involved in worship. For instance, the Azande of southern Sudan confront benge to address questions of adultery or sorcery and confronting iwa to determine if witchcraft has been used against them. Among the Luba people, the friction device known as kakishi (a small, carved wooden object held by the individual and diviner) is used. The movements of the object provide answers to the individual’s questions. Also, in the Luba culture, a form of divination involving the sacred gourd is used. In this instance, the diviner would mix a variety of natural and manufactured objects together and interpret the configuration formed by the objects. Animals are also used in divination. In a few cultures, mice and spiders are observed, and the random movements will answer the individual’s questions.
Visit http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/oracle/essayPemberton.html to read more about the divination previously mentioned and other forms of divination. The website also contains links that display interesting artifacts and objects that are used in divination.