User:Amartey15/sandbox

Jameson's Peer Review
1. What does the article do well? Is there anything from your review that impressed you? This could be information, writing, etc. that you think your classmate should not change and/or should expand on. The article does a great job explaining and opening up the topic.

2. Where do you see room for improvement or further development? Make sure to explain why these changes would improve the article. Details are currently minimal which is understandable because it is a draft. An outline may help improve where the direction of the article will be going next.

3. What's the most important thing the author could do to improve the article? To make sure that the article is structured in a way that best allows for effective understanding of the presented information.

4. Is the article well-organized? Does the structure make sense? The article as it is, is well organized. An outline may help to further organize it.

6. As a reader, what else would you like to know about this topic? [Note, this information may not be readily available in all cases, but it can help generate interesting directions for research!] I’d be interested in knowing how education in pre-colonial africa had an effect on the political systems of the time.

Article Evaluation
Education in Africa

Evaluating Content

 * Most of the data/sourcing focuses on 2015 thereby not covering the entire periods of education in Africa from Pre-Colonial Africa to Present day African countries.
 * Considering that Africa is made up of 54 different countries with different/distinct policies, the article could have grouped some countries with similar education conditions, policies and or educational goals or just write about specific  African countries.

Evaluating Tone

 * The article is biased against African countries and biased for international organizations since it writes mainly from the perspectives and data from International Organizations rather than from field note researches/data, and other more neutral data/researches
 * The article heavily focused on formal education, and hence ignored the largest form of education in Africa, which is informal education such as apprenticeship, trade, etc.

Evaluating Sources

 * The article mostly focuses on findings by International organizations such World Food Programme, United Nations, World Education Forum, UNESCO, etc.
 * The article could focus more on sources/researches about the effects of education in Africa, the timeline of education in Africa, the current situations of education in Africa, etc.
 * Most claims in the article are also not cited hence making them questionable.
 * Most of the references were also poorly cited hence it raises questions of the article's credibility/notability. For instance most of the references only had the titles of the articles without name of author, publication, pages, database, etc

Article's Talk page

 * The article is within the scope of Wikiproject Africa and Wikiproject Education. Both wikiprojects rated it as a c-class but high importance.
 * One Wikipedian notes that the articles choice of words such as "lack", "overcrowding" and "disparity" and the articles main focus on western/formal education makes it a very negative article.
 * Another Wikipedian also notes that the article should be translated into French, English, and other national languages in Africa.
 * Another Wikipedian also notes that the article is too broad and generalizes instead of focusing on specific conditions within specific regions/countries in Africa.

Education in Africa
I will be adding a section titled, Education in Pre-Colonial Africa, to explain the forms of education in Africa before it was colonized. I may also add citations to some of the poorly cited statements in the article but my main focus will be on working to add the Education in Pre-colonial Africa section to the Education in Africa article.

Education in Pre-Colonial Africa
Pre-colonial Africa was mostly made up of tribes who often migrate depending on seasons, availability of fertile soil, and political circumstances. Therefore, power was decentralized in pre-colonial Africa ( many people held some form of authority which was not concentrated in a particular person or an institution). Usually, a person's entitlement to land ( which are mostly patriarchal) gives the person some form of power within the person's household and or within the person's tribe. Households were also economically independent such that members of a household produced their own food, shelter and security. There was therefore no need for a formally organized education in pre-colonial Africa, as members of each household learn their skills, values, responsibilities, socialization and  norms of their tribe/community/household by observing and assisting older household  or community members.

Education in pre-colonial Africa was therefore in the form of apprenticeship, a form of informal education, where children and or younger members of each household mostly learned from older members of their tribe/household/community. In most cases, each household member learns more than one skills in addition to learning the values, socialization, and norms of the community/tribe/household. Some of the common skills that people in pre-colonial Africa had to learn include; dancing, farming, wine making, cooking (mostly the females), in some cases some selected people learn how to practice herbal medicine, carving of stools, carving of masks and other furniture.

Story telling also played significant role in education during precolonial Africa. Parents, other older members of households and Griots used oral story telling to teach children about the history, norms and values of their household/tribe/community. Children usually gathered around the storyteller who then narrates stories, usually using personifications to tell stories that encourages conformity, obedience and values such as endurance, integrity, and other ethical values that are important for co-operations.

Festivals and rituals in most cases were also used as means to teach younger members of a household/tribe/community about the history of their household, community and or tribe. Rituals were mainly used to teach young adults about the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood such as teaching females how to cock and care for a household and teaching the men how to hunt, make masks, etc.