Queries on education of African children

THE EDITOR: A question opens the mind, a statement closes it – Robert Kiyosaki.

Why did the 23 endorsers of the “Statement on education of children of African origin,” which was published earlier this year in the daily newspapers, fail to offer data to support their assertions and cite examples from schools or countries where children of African origin are excelling?

How can the education of children of African origin be expected to improve if the best educated persons of African origin are unable to utilize their research skills, gained through their academic qualifications, to find such data and examples?

Can’t examples be found from countries on the continent of Africa where the majority of children of African origin are educated? Are there no schools there where children excel?

Positive examples to analyse and replicate can’t be found even in the United States of America where the majority of the world’s millionaires of African origin were born, raised and educated?

What exactly is taught in African American studies? Do none of the courses teach how people of African origin overcame oppression in America? What role, if any, did education play in people of African origin overcoming systemic oppression, discrimination and prejudice in America?

Locally, what conditions in education existed, which apparently do not exist now, that allowed those of the endorsers of African origin to excel and achieve academic success?

Is there anything put forward in the “Statement on education of children of African origin” that can be seriously considered as having actual value in improving the education of children of African origin?

And my last question which may open the mind of those of us of African origin: of all the winners of the President’s Medal for the past 20 years, how many of them were raised in a household where only one parent resided?

REGINALD MIEUX

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