Coming out of a successful MOSIAH season we are compelled to feature the campaign to save the Marcus Garvey Library, situated in Tottenham, north London.  On the back of their closure, after a bitter campaign, of the Afrikan-led John Loughborough School in 2013 Haringey Council has set its sights on this edifice of 1980s resistance by selling off valuable books and encroaching of study areas with a customer service centre.  This is in spite of the fact that the council’s own statistics reveal a soaring over representation of use of the library by the Afrikan community.  We will be speaking to Friends Of Marcus Garvey Chair Sis. Jasmin Taylor.  For more information:http://friendsofmgl.tumblr.com/

It’s September and many of our children will be returning to school, starting a new school or even starting school.  There’ll be feelings of hope and aspiration but also apprehension and worry.  Four and a half decades after Bernard Coard penned his seminal work How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System: The Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain, prescribing a then well-established concern, the academic underachievement of Afrikan children is an enduring factor of life in the UK.

According to the Department for Education report GCSE and equivalent attainment by pupil characteristics in England: 2010 to 2011:

“[At 48’6%] Black Caribbean students have the lowest attainment levels out of all ethnic groups except Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. This becomes even more pronounced when looking at Black Caribbean boys. Whilst there are attainment gaps between boys and girls amongst all ethnic groups, the gender gap is even greater between Black Caribbean girls and boys, being 12.5% compared to the national gender gap of 7.3%”

The attainment level of “Black African” is reported as 57.9% is still below the national average.  Moreover, the Runnymede Trust Briefing on ethnicity and educational attainment, June 2012 highlights that being excluded from school has a massive impact on a pupil’s attainment levels:  They proceed to reveal some startling statistics:

•    Black Caribbean boys in particular are twice as likely to be characterised as having behavioural, emotional or social difficulty compared to White British boys (Stephen J. Ball, 2008)
•    Black Caribbean boys are 37 times more likely to be excluded than girls of Indian origin.
•    Black African-Caribbean boys with special needs and eligible for free school meals you were 168 times more likely to be permanently excluded from a state funded school than a White girl without special needs from a middle class family.

Even among those that manage to negotiate the challenges of schooling and proceed to university still find themselves at a disadvantage.  Not only do they find it more difficult to find places at the elite universities (Russell group unis ‘unfairly rejecting ethnic minorities’, The Voice Online, 20/08/2015), the Runnymede Trust Briefing indicates: “66.4% of White students studying first degrees received a first class or second class honours qualification, compared to 48.1% of BME students overall and only 37.7% of Black students (Equality Challenge Unit, 2009).”

In his book How To Homeschool Your Child award winning author, educationalist and originator of the Simon Education Method, David Simon offers this diagnosis:

“These statistics have arisen have arisen from an industrial model of education that started in the late 19th and early 20th century in America and Europe.  It is time for us to investigate an alternative education system that might be closer, and more natural, to us than we think.”

However, among all these tales of woe there are cases like Caija Addai who achieved 10 A*s at GCSE or Toyosi Sadare who got four A*s at A-Level last summer and of course “Britain’s brainiest family” the record breaking Imafidons (Anne-Marie, Christiana, Samantha, Peter and Paula) demonstrate that high achievement is possible.

So we ask the question,

Can our children really succeed in the UK education system?

1.    Why are attainment levels still so low decades after the problem was identified?
2.    What accounts for the different attainment levels in “African” and “Caribbean” pupils?
3.    Is home schooling the answer?
4.    Do cases like Addai, Sadare and the Imafidons prove that the system can work and we just need to change our approach?
Our special guests are:

Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK.  A veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence.

Bro. David Simon: is an award winning author, educationalist and originator of the Simon Education Method, and founder of the Ebony Saturday Schools.  He is author of How to Unlock Your Child’s Genius (and seven workbooks in the series), How to Unlock Your Family’s Genius, How To Homeschool Your Child and the novels Garvey’s Last Soldier and Railton Blues.

---

AFRIKA SPEAKS with ALKEBU-LAN on GALAXY RADIO!

Hear weekly discussions and lively debate on all issues affecting the Afrikan community, at home and abroad. We talk it straight and make it plain!

Hosted by Sis Kai Ouagadou-Mbandaka and Bro. Omowale Kwaw

Galaxy Radio  102.5fm www.galaxyafiwe.com (To listen live)

CLICK HERE to view latest AFRIKA SPEAKSShow Spec. Leave a comment and contribute to the discussion.