Faith in development

This book is a collection of papers presented and/or published in various format during my period of service with UNESCO: 1988-1999. The period was a consolidation and a logical continuation of the intensive work of promoting inter-African cooperation for the development of Education which began in my days as Executive Secretary of the African Curriculum Organization (ACO): 1976-1986 and which continued when I served as Programmed Coordinator for Education with the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession (WCOTP) from July 1988. The intensive work involved the organization of conferences and workshops as well as teaching, delivering keynote papers and writing commissioned articles for books and journals. I was thus able to travel all over Africa, working with practicing teachers, teachers organisations, learned societies, researchers, development assistance agencies, educational institutions, and policy makers. My views were regularly sought and I was everywhere urged to commit my thoughts into writing. The thoughts have been published in all sorts of places and in all sorts of forms. This book is an attempt to bring these thoughts together in a single volume, with the hope that thinkers on and practitioners of Education (in and on Africa) can see the threads running through my thinking, as shaped by my on-the-ground experience, which has been as challenging as it has been interesting.