ADEA 1999 Biennial Meeting
Program of the Conference now online
Daily Press Releases
ADEA is actively preparing for its 1999 Biennial Meeting. The meeting will be held December 5-9, 1999 in South Africa in the vicinity of Johannesburg. Over 300 people, including Ministers of Education, senior representatives of development agencies, educationists and researchers are expected to participate. This year, the theme of the meeting will be "Education in Africa. What Works and What's New? Africa Speaks." The meeting will be held December 5-9, 1999 at the Mövenpick Indaba Hotel in the vicinity of Johannesburg. Participation in the meeting is by invitation only.
Discussions during the Biennial Meeting will draw upon material generated and lessons learned from a major study undertaken by ADEA since 1998 referred to as The Prospective, Stock-Taking Review of Education in Africa. The objective of the study was to identify solutions and viable policy responses to the well-known, well-documented problems and constraints related to three major issues facing education in Africa: access, quality, and capacity-building. For this exercise, all African Ministries of Education and the ADEA Working Groups were requested to provide: (i) information on policies, innovations or experiences that have addressed these issues; (ii) evidence of the success of these policies; and, (iii) an analysis of how and why they have been effective. The study has yielded a large and rich crop of papers involving 25 country teams and 6 Working Groups. The exercise has mobilized a substantial number of people and, in many countries, ministers have been directly involved in some or all of the phases of the exercise. The results and inputs of the Prospective Stock-Taking Review will provide the basis of discussions during the Biennial Meeting.
A major assumption underpinning the Prospective Stock-Taking Study is that there is a wealth of knowledge and experience within Africa to guide adequate cost-effective policies required for the development of education in Africa. The Biennial Meeting will be an opportunity to take stock of what has worked and to promote the sharing and application of such knowledge. Every two years, ADEA organizes a major event gathering African Ministers of Education across the continent, senior officers of the development community, and education researchers and specialists.
The ADEA Biennial Meeting provides a unique opportunity for members of the Association to meet and discuss a specific issue concerning education in Africa. In 1997, the Biennial meeting was held in Dakar and focused on "Partnerships for Capacity Building and Quality Improvements in Education". Themes of previous Biennial Meetings were: "Formulating Education Policy in sub-Saharan Africa" (1995, Tours, France); "Issues Related to the Implementation of Education Projects and Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa" (1993, Angers, France); "Textbook Provision and Library Development in Africa" (1991, Manchester, U.K).
More information on the Biennial Meeting is now available in the ADEA Newsletter (Vol 11, Number 4, October-December 1999)
