The Addis Ababa Conference :

Abstract

Although the Conference was not an original idea, it was the first occasion in Africa which dealt with educational programs, progress, needs, and problems of middle Africa as a whole. It was recognized as the first effort to locate and examine the problems of African education on a continental basis, to identify those problems, and to devise ways and means of dealing with them.

Conceived as the most vital and most important technique in providing solutions to these problems was education. The African peoples decided that education was the key toward solving many of the problems confronting the African nations at independence. The other technique they resorted to once they decided that in education lay the common salvation to their problems was the interregional conference that would furnish a common organization toward achieving common goals. The interregional organization that they formed with the support and assistance of many other groups and nations was the Conference of African States on the Development of Education in Africa, otherwise known as the Addis Ababa Conference. It was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from May 15-25, 1960.

This study investigates the following issues: First, what were the motivations or reasons of the African states in organizing the conference? Second, what was the basic philosophy of the conference as it related to education? Third, how did the conference translate that philosophy into targets and objectives which in turn were transformed into public policies by the respective members of the conference to be implemented by government agencies in each member country? Fourth, what were the achievements of the member states of the conference insofar as they related to conference targets and objectives? Fifth and last, what are the prospects of the conference for the coming years?

The Addis Ababa conference provided the initiative for African nations to act in concert in attempt to meet problems of common concern in education. It provided a common forum for the discussion of educational problems as well as providing opportunities for the development of mutual respect and understanding among peoples who though living on the same continent had been separated by different educational systems, political institutions and cultural traditions as a result of colonialism. It provided a common ground for collective thinking on the new trends and factors which were affecting the African countries as a group. It also drew the attention on the developed countries to the educational needs of Africa. The conference has to be realistically viewed as the individual effort of each country in the development and use of its own natural and human resources as well as the utilization of any assistance received from outside sources. The conference may well provide concrete evidence to the philosophy that the problems of humanity can well be solved by human beings involved in the peaceful pursuit of an education that will benefit the human race as a whole.

In the 1960's, many African nations achieved political independence. With political independence came mounting problems of national security, economic stability, and attempts at achieving modernization in a relatively short period of time. With these problems also rose the problem of achieving cultural and racial identity in a world of rapidly changing values and ideas.