Photos: Semafor\Nduati.githae\Wikimedia Commons
UNESCO is updating its 60-year old African history curriculum with new volumes that include African diasporas and their contributions to modern-day societies.
The General History of Africa (GHA) program was introduced in 1964 to help remedy the general ignorance of Africa’s history by reconstructing it and “freeing it from racial prejudices ensuing from slave trade and colonization,” while promoting an African perspective.
In its latest effort, the UN body is developing tools that African teachers and education policymakers can use to strengthen the teaching of the GHA program. The piloting workshop on mainstreaming African history was held in Ghana in September. The objective was to incorporate this history into national school education curricula.
“Teaching a common history to Africans is crucial in decolonizing the curriculum,” said Professor Paul Abiero, a historian at Moi University in Kenya. “But successful implementation will require financial resources, which are very limited in many countries.”
