PAN-AFRICANISM AND EDUCATION : AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF AFRICAN CENTERED SCHOOLS IN CAMEROON AND SOUTH AFRICA

“Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu” translates into a person is a person because of people. There is an idea of unity in this frequently used Zulu proverb that is posted boldly next to the Afrocentric logo on the African Union International School (AUIS) website in Midrand South, Africa. All these words are factors within Pan-Africanism, and AUIS is more than an international school in South Africa, but it is one of two schools created by the African Centered Educational Foundation (ACE). The other school is called the African American Academy in Douala, Cameroon. Under the auspice of ACE, both schools share a very special mission implied within its vision that includes an education for the African Renaissance. Through a content analysis, this paper will illustrate how the African Centered Education Foundation represents Pan-Africanism through the institutionalization of African Centered Education illustrated by their technological media (school websites, facebook, online articles), educational tools (brochures, teacher evaluations, lesson plans, teacher’s introduction package), and their African diaspora volunteer teacher program.

What’s Educational Leadership Without an African-Centered Perspective? Explorations and Extrapolations

This article provides an overview of current issues confronting educational leaders dedicated to the fundamentals, curriculum, pedagogy, and practices of African-centered education (ACE) and its evolving nature in the 21st century. By considering and situating African-centered leadership in the discussion of educational leadership generally, and within the expanding and prescient notions of leadership for social justice specifically, the article offers useful connections to educational leadership scholars and practitioners who straddle these interdisciplinary domains of scholarship and action as an opportunity to build from the emerging literature within the extant fields of study and to push urban educational leaders and practitioners to think more critically about the direction of ACE theory, practice, and praxis.

Africentric Education Leadership: Theory and Practice

This article unveils the largely unknown theories and practices of “cultural reattachment Africentric education leaders,” because many people of African descent are now choosing to reattach (in whole or in part) to aspects of certain African cultures (such as Wolof or Akan). The article offers a brief background of African-centered education, discusses the theories and philosophies of Africentric education leaders, and explicates the methodology of this Africentric research project. Africentric education leaders are concerned about black communities becoming more avaricious but less unified; therefore, they offer African cultural ethos to combat both miseducation and individualism. This article also provides policy recommendations for instituting Africentric education as a comprehensive approach to address myriad problems being faced by black children and communities. In this research I advocate for Africentric theory and also employ ethnographic methods as I examine Africentric education practice.