In preparation for the upcoming AAPS 2010 conference on planning education (to be held from 5 to 8 October in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), a background paper has been prepared to inform debate around planning curricular reform in Africa.
Please click here to download the background paper (in draft form).
The paper is structured as follows:
- Section 1 presents a broad historical overview of the development of planning educational programmes internationally, and culminates in a working typology of planning educational models.
- Section 2 briefly discusses this typology with respect to planning education in Africa, and argues that educational models originating in the United States and Europe have inculcated the African experience.
- Section 3 provides a series of brief introductions to relevant debates within planning literature, with respect to curricular development.
- Section 4 discusses contemporary trends and cases of curricular reform.
- Section 5 concludes by proposing a curriculum framework for postgraduate African planning education.
The proposed curricular framework is essentially a template, which could be used by any planning school to devise a new postgraduate planning programme or reconfigure an existing curriculum. The structure and content of the curricular framework will form the substance of much debate at the conference, and as such participants are highly encouraged to read the document before arriving in Dar es Salaam. The paper may also be of interest to planning educators, students and practitioners across the African continent, who wish to know more about the history and contemporary trends/debates of higher planning education.
