| Several decades after political independence, the curriculum of the public school system in African countries remains largely alien to their indigenous cultures. The kind of education offered in most contemporary African schools places an overwhelming emphasis on imparting technical skills (literacy, mathematics) and knowledge (science, social studies), and treats other dimensions of personal and social development as matters of secondary importance. Yet in the indigenous cultures of African societies, psychosocial characteristics such as cooperation, responsibility and nurturance are valued even more highly than the technical skills and knowledge emphasized in the school curriculum. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this follow-up study examined the long-term consequences of an educational innovation, Child-to-Child, on the present-day lives of basic and secondary school students in rural Zambia who received the CtC curriculum in primary school. Quantitative data was collected on 32 former CtC students and 48 students who received the regular curriculum (NCtC). These data derived from a teacher rating task and revealed that (1) basic school girls were rated higher on Nurturance, Cooperation, and Social Responsibility than students in any other group; (2) girls were rated higher on Healthy Lifestyle than boys; (3) basic school students were rated more self confident than secondary school students; (4) CtC girls were rated more academically motivated than students in any other group, and (5) NCtC students were rated slightly higher on academic standing than CtC students. Qualitative data, derived from student and teacher focus groups, structured interviews, and ethnographic participant observation, examined teachers' and students' ideological views on both general and specific aspects of Zambian education. Different patterns of responses emerged for basic and secondary school teachers and students. Students who received the CtC curriculum and then went on to basic school were able to incorporate CtC principles and practices into their behavioral repertoire, whereas secondary school students, seeking institutional approval, had adapted to the competitive expectations and demands of secondary school. The study concludes that while the dominant culture of educational establishment appears too conservative to incorporate CtC philosophy as a whole, elements of CtC could be incorporated, thus achieving some modest amelioration of the status quo. |
