Impacts of Globalisation on Africa's Educational System, 1980-2000

This article emphasizes the impacts of globalisation on Africa's Educational system. Despite the positive Impacts of globalization such as free movement of goods, services and capital which have resulted in economic growth and development, and peaceful coexistence, it has succeeded in dividing the world into blocs of developed and developing nations. Africa is poor and weak because of dearth of institutions that can safeguard them against the negative effects of globalization. There are few good and responsible governments in Africa that will create policies of development and thoroughly enforce them to better the lot of their people. Due to this failure, African governments merely fund consumption. This has negative effects on education. To overcome the devastating effects that globalisation has on the African continent; science education, technological innovation, and industrial development should be prioritized by African governments, and supported by the developed world. Without ensuring this, the economic world will remain unjust to Africa as their resources are spent on consumption of commodities of industrialized countries. A balanced approach will require that African goods and services are consumed in the developed world. This is possible if the educational system is developed first. This study will focus on the socio-economic and educational inequalities in Africa. It observed that African nations and other continents that took International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans face similar dilemma, of the 'lost decade' of the 1980. Hence, a rethinking of globalisation, educational empowerment of women is highly recommended. A reversal of educational inequality and balancing of economic development, promoting of human dignity and rolling back of inequality in general is also recommended. This article adopts a qualitative method to do a content analysis of data using information resources from the Library and internet. Findings reveal weak cooperation among African countries to embrace globalisation and industrialisation.