Africa, Gifted Education

In most, if not all, of the developing countries of Africa, primary education for all children has yet to be achieved. Moreover, the Western concept of individualistic accomplishment and progress is inappropriate when considering the concept of “giftedness” in the developing countries of Africa. The African concept of “a person” is closely bound up with the concept of “community” where individuals express “gifts” through group activity. The powerful African concept of ubuntu, meaning “humanity,” binds the group together in common effort. This is profoundly evident in the community focus on collective celebration, dance, music, and song, which is acknowledged worldwide. Hence, even in South Africa, which is developing very productively, there is generally great reluctance to discuss giftedness, which is often perceived as elitist and divisive. Only in the more Westernized cities would one find what is called “the new middle class” of Black Africans who aspire to be like Americans or Europeans. The dilemma lies in accommodating the need to lift the standard of living of all people in a developing country while not sacrificing the cultural richness and energy that enabled people to survive a very debilitating political regime.

Nevertheless, initiatives to cater to potentially able pupils are developing, particularly in urban and periurban communities. For example, [Page 34][Page 35]M. A. J. Olivier and Lesley A. Wood are working with teachers in the disadvantaged community of Nelson Mandela Bay to improve teachers' sense of self-efficacy and power as change agents. Kevin Rochford, at the University of Cape Town, is developing science research skills with groups of young students in order to equip them with the skills and confidence to investigate science problems in relation to South Africa. Another example is the work of Jacobus G. Maree and Jacob M. Molepo, which centers on developing life skills in communities where pupils are seriously impoverished and threatened with AIDS/HIV. Maree is also working in the Limpopo Province to develop students' skills of problem solving in mathematics so that potentially able young mathematicians can then pursue their studies at the University of Pretoria.

Figure 1 Overview of the Thinking Actively in a Social Context (TASC) Problem-Solving Framework

Source: © Belle Wallace, 2000.

The examples of upliftment initiatives referred to in the previous paragraph all take into account Jean McNiff and Jack Whitehead's notion of living theory, which involves the community of pupils and teachers in a cyclic process of action research that is initially formulated with the target group; and through processes of reflection, evaluation, and consequent rethinking, the action research is revised and developed further.