Problems of teaching science in West and East Africa

Two basic problems – lack of human and material resources – have assumed alarming proportions as a result of the explosion in student numbers consequent to the ‘education for all’ policy adopted by most African states. Education in general and science education in particular are assumed to constitute the mechanisms through which Africans can attain the ‘good life’. This paper however while underscoring the well-established problems of teaching science in Africa, takes a hard look at a new dimension which involves the conceptualisation of science per se. How do the African learners of science perceive and learn science and do their perceptions and learning style constitute a barrier to the teaching-learning process of science in the schools? Answers to this conceptual stance of science provide the much needed hard data on problems and indeed prospects of science teaching in the Western and Eastern sub-regions of Africa. The paper attempts to relate the learning and teaching of science to the African environment. Notes, bibliogr.