As one of our key pillars of activity, education is embedded in the mission of The Africa Centre and is at the heart of all our programming. This means that everything we do must have a basic output of enriching and uplifting all who engage with us. This is evident throughout our 60-year history. We were at the heart of the Black supplementary school system in the 1970s. We were the intellectual hub for discourse on Black History and its place in the UK school curriculum. African languages and arts and cultural education have always been a key part of what we do. We have also collaborated with educational institutions, sponsored studies, and facilitated research, as well as being the subject of Ph.D. studies. 

It is therefore apt that by a combination of serendipity and design, the focus of my activity over the past month has been on various aspects of education. 

Following our previous blog where we committed to being more engaged in the causes of knife crime, I was invited to attend a conference on Adultification bias (a form of racial prejudice where children of minoritised groups are treated as being more mature than they are). The conference concluded that there is an urgent need not just to decolonise curriculum but also children’s minds, engage with building an antiracist classroom, develop cultural competence in staff, and adopt a more child-centered approach to accountability. It was stressed that culture plays a powerful role in developing children’s sense of identity as a source of empowerment to combat the challenges of Adultification. 

We had the pleasure of a visit by the amazing and evergreen educationalist Professor Gus John. Professor John revealed that not only had he been at The Africa Centre at its opening in 1964 but had written the first policy paper on Black history in the curriculum from there in the 1970s! We look forward to working with him later in the year as part of our 60th-anniversary celebrations.  

It was also delightful to have been invited to contribute to a workshop on Responsive Engagement and Academic Leadership held in partnership with the University of Ghana and the University of Edinburgh in Accra. I was particularly pleased to have had the opportunity to stress the importance of universities developing more equal partnerships with cultural organisations, especially in their ongoing efforts to decolonise not just the curriculum but also the international funding infrastructure and in developing an Africa-centred approach to academic ethics. It was especially an honour for me that the chair of my panel was the legendary poet Prof Kofi Anyidoho. My trip to Accra coincided with Ghana’s 67th Independence Day celebrations. 

London Marathon Fundraising Campaign

You would have seen that we now have a taker for our London Marathon place this year - DJ MDKay will be pounding the route to raise money for our new Education programme. He’s doing the running, so we should do the supporting – please donate and share the link amongst your networks so we can smash this target! Thanks for your effort, MDKay!

Support The Campaign

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