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Sub-Saharan African societies had contacts with China that stretch back to the early days of the Silk Road where the two regions facilitated trade relations and exchanged technology and ideas. Beginning in the 1950s China formalized relations with SSA based on South-South cooperation. At the end of the Cold War, China intensified its relations with SSA within the frameworks of "One Belt one Road" in Africa and the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The China-Africa relations have scored benefits in the areas of promoting infrastructural development, strong investments in SSA, trade links between the two regions, less expensive technical assistance for nations in SSA, cultural exchanges, and student scholarships. Nonetheless, the relations raise complicated issues around trade where China is flooding markets in SSA with inferior goods, acquisition of resources, Chinese mining companies causing environmental destruction in many countries in SSA, and the Chinese government's debt trapping of many sub-Saharan African nations. Many suspect that China is surreptitiously forging a relationship with SSA that may help it assert its "trusteeship" over sub-Saharan Africa's political, economic, and development processes. The paper is developed within these broader contexts to examine the paradoxes and contradictions of the China-sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) relations and their potential impacts on education policy and practice in the region. The paper focuses on SSA, a region that constitutes forty-eight of the fifty-four countries of the African continent. This sociohistorical paper is part of my ongoing study to examine the impacts of external forces' economic and political relations on education policy and practice in the SSA and the potential of the relations to destabilize the epistemological processes of sub-Saharan African societies. [For the complete Volume 22 proceedings, see ED656158.]

There exists a power asymmetry between instructors and students in the physical classroom and other learning spaces which symbolizes the distribution of power in social spaces. Because of the structured power asymmetry in most learning spaces, promoting effective classroom teaching sometimes requires instructors to replace existing hierarchical power relations and with fluid, organic, and transgressive classroom dynamics in their relationships with their students. This approach has the potential to empower students to become their own agency for interrogating the assumptions and ideologies that they bring to the classroom. This paper outlines the instructional strategies that I incorporate in my "nonwestern" course that aims to introduce students in my university to the sub-Saharan African region. The course uses the interdisciplinary approach to explore the complicated ways history and social changes (including globalization) intersect to shape education reforms, and economic and social development in sub-Saharan Africa. Students bring a plethora of assumptions about sub-Saharan "Africa" to this course and my goal as an instructor is to help students interrogate their own assumptions and deconstruct the myths and distortions about the "Africa" in a broader term. The paper outlines the way I deliberately select course materials, and sequence course contents and themes to scaffold and promote incremental knowledge about the region for students during the semester. Furthermore, the paper outlines the strategies that help nudge students' critical thinking and restructure the power relations in the classroom. While these strategies may not automatically change students' assumptions about sub-Saharan "Africa", they nonetheless become opportunities for my students and I to reposition for effective discussions about the region with the goal to interrogating students' prior assumptions and views about the region. [For the complete Volume 21 proceedings, see ED629259.]

In alignment with the theme of the conference "Education in Developing, Emerging, and Developed Countries: Different Worlds, Common Challenges," this paper brings attention to the challenges associated with the implementation of sustainable research capacity building (SRCB) in the context of BRICS nations and African countries. Employing a comparative document analysis method to explore the unique contexts of developing nations, this research provides insights and recommendations to strengthen research capacity in academia, address shared challenges and promote national prosperity. The scholarly literature revealed that higher education institutions (HEIs) in developing countries have intensified their efforts in building the research capacity of their academics and institutions. Regardless of their commitment, HEIs face challenges such as gender inequalities, teaching workloads, doctoral program deficiencies, lack of multidisciplinary research approaches and funding constraints. Addressing the challenges will require improved funding for research training and research productivity. One of the main concerns is that instead of advancing knowledge and being producers thereof, most developing countries remain knowledge consumers. The findings revealed that developing the next generation of academics plays a critical role in the sustainability of an emerging country's research system. [For the complete Volume 22 proceedings, see ED656158.]

Physical distancing, isolation and an absence of face-to-face meetings with participants and respondents, as ramifications of the current COVID-19 pandemic, have an adverse effect on research projects, research processes and data generation. Furthermore, researchers' professional development and career prospects are seriously hampered, most notably those of early career academics. These predicaments considerably outweigh the admitted positive effects of the pandemic on research endeavours. The literature sources consulted were published in 2020 and 2021. This paper therefore can merely claim to reflect an early 2021 cross-cut of the rapidly developing pandemic and its influence on higher education, and specifically research. This paper represents a scenario where the focus has shifted from the 2020 lockdowns and travel restrictions to the 2021 vaccination period. It explores the implications of physical distancing -- the relative absence of unhindered personal contact -- in the sphere of research in general, and especially research in education contexts. A literature survey generated several insights from scholars worldwide, while personal experience also forms part of the discussion. As indicated by the literature, researchers have to make the most of the current virtual communication during data generation, conferences and interaction with colleagues and fellow project participants. I trust that vaccination will soon ensure that physical distancing will become unnecessary during research and on the campus. [For the complete Volume 19 proceedings, see ED613922.]

Transnational policy borrowing and lending of ideas is mostly from the global North to the global South. In sub-Saharan Africa, transnational policy borrowing and lending is complicated by western "dirty gossips" (distortions and stereotypes) about African societies. While works by Steiner-Khamsi, Quist and Kendall outline the complexities of transnational resource flows to sub-Saharan Africa, analysis of how western distortions about Africa shape transnational policy transfer is lacking. This paper employs symbolic violence and postcolonial frameworks to outline how Europeans and Americans' "dirty gossips" about Africa have influenced external transfer and flow of educational ideas and practices to sub-Saharan Africa since the colonial era. It also delineates the complicated ways western distortions and stereotypes about sub-Saharan Africa is a strategy by western partners in the global transnational policy borrowing and lending processes to position themselves in trusteeship roles while infantilizing education policy makers in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper argues that western education partners, particularly, western Africanist scholars, employ distortions and stereotypes as important components of their transnational policy borrowing and lending frameworks with the objective to present education in sub-Saharan Africa as a "crisis" and a new frontier, and their resolve to confront, explore and tame the crisis.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, a plethora of western Christian and secular philanthropies introduced "top-down" philanthropic initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa to promote education and "development". There seems to be a complex link between the agendas of international philanthropies and their home governments' broader foreign policy frameworks. This paper discusses American philanthropies' educational initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from the 1920s to the end of the twentieth century. The paper focuses on four American philanthropies namely, Phelps-Stokes Fund, Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. It argues that American philanthropies' education initiatives helped to push the United States foreign policy agenda of transplanting adapted education in SSA, extending the social stratification of Black Africans in the global geopolitical processes, and promoting race relations. The agenda was promoted within the framework of White racial superiority and American "idealism" which the philanthropies presented as "development" after nations in SSA attained independence. [For the complete Volume 17 proceedings, see ED596826.]

According to the human capital theory variations in economic growth are explained by differences in the influence of education on human capital formation within countries. Despite huge government investment in education aimed at building human capital countries within the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) region continues to face low economic growth. This conceptual paper thus investigates the relationship between education, human capital formation and economic growth in SSA. Findings from the theoretical and empirical analysis reveal that education in SSA countries seems to make an insignificant contribution to human capital formation and economic growth jointly. In conclusion, the economic development variations observed across countries might be an indication of the need for a context-based human capital-based education approaches to strengthen economic growth within SSA countries. The study recommends that educational approaches that strengthen human capital creation should be adopted to promote economic growth in SSA countries. [For the complete Volume 20 proceedings, see ED622631.]

This paper employs postcolonial framework to discuss the contradictions of promoting western education in Islamic communities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Prior to colonization, Islamic education was an important socializing process that instilled strong Islamic identity in Islamic communities in SSA. European encounters in SSA and the introduction of western education shifted the socializing process and reconfigured SSA societies and dislocated Islamic communities in the region. I argue that Islamic communities' marginalization educationally since the colonial era is partly the result of their resistance to western colonization and all its forms. In the first part of the paper I discuss postcolonial discourse and education. The second part discusses education and religion nexus in sub-Saharan Africa. It uses recent Pew Research for example as evidence to delineate the Muslim-Christian gaps in education by age categories and gender. The third part outlines ways western education became a tool for reconfiguring Islamic communities and the rationales behind Islamic communities' resistance to this form of education. The concluding section discusses contemporary efforts to promote education in Islamic communities in SSA within the rubric of Education for All (EFA). [For the complete Volume 15 proceedings, see ED574185.]

The majority of people in Southern and Eastern Africa (SEA) including Zimbabwe, Kenya and Uganda live in rural areas on less than two dollars a day. The countries however share education values based on the conviction that education will transform society and as a result have embraced the Millennium Development (MDG) and Education for All (EFA) Goals as benchmarks for their educational reform agenda. SEA countries are largely faced with a situation where families are saddled by and cannot break from the cycle of poverty partly because of lack of children's sustainable school access. Sustained access to meaningful learning is critical to long term improvements in productivity, the reduction of intergenerational cycles of poverty, demographic transition, preventive health care, the empowerment of women and reduction of poverty. This paper argues that this will depend very much on constructive early years teacher pedagogical practices among other factors. An expanded definition of education access includes concerns for attendance as well as enrolment, progression at the appropriate age, achievement of learning goals, equitable access to opportunities to learn and availability of an adequate learning environment. This paper uses the UNESCO Millennium Development Goals as its framework to advocate early years teachers' further in-school training and development. It utilizes a descriptive analytical methodology to contribute to the reflective discussion on educational reforms for transformation based mainly on examples from three countries in SEA given above. It mainly focuses on the role that teachers can play in enhancing sustainable access to Early Literacy through adequate training. The paper utilizes findings from studies in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Uganda as the backdrop of the challenges facing the education systems. The paper concludes that every effort is required to promote early years pedagogies that will lead to more sustainable school access and the escape from the poverty cycle in Southern and Eastern Africa. [For complete volume, see ED567118.]

This paper analyses the financial circumstances and social income of nearly one hundred unaccompanied minors who have come to Hamburg as refugees from various regions of Africa. It is based on extensive qualitative surveys, analysing their objective conditions of life and in particular their legal situation. A wide range of interview material and participative observations were used to obtain information on biographic courses and school and vocational careers of the young refugees over a period which extended to ten years in some cases, giving very detailed insights into their "hidden lives". [For complete volume, see ED567040.]

The flight of human capital is a phenomenon that has been of concern to academics and development practitioners for decades but unfortunately, there is no systematic record of the number of skilled professionals that many African countries have continued to lose to the developed world. Termed the "brain drain", it represents the loss of highly skilled professionals from a source country to a recipient country. Kenyan higher education institutions for many years have seemed to operate on the assumption that there will always be people ready to join the institutions as academic staff hence no emphasis on retention. The situation has gradually changed in the last two decades as public higher education institutions in Kenya have continued to face a number of challenges with regard to numbers and quality of academic staff. This led the Ministry of Education-Kenya (2006) to advice the institutions to show more eagerness to recruit, develop and retain qualified academics. However, it is clear that these challenges have not been met. This paper critically examines the migration and brain drain in public higher education institutions in Kenya and its implications and suggests that the institutions should continue to explore strategies on how best to use the skills and experience of emigrant academics, and how to minimise their outflow. [For complete volume, see ED567040.]