This year - Africa

Categories: Devlopment and Health, Geography General

I was at a family do on New Year's night, and got roped into a game after dinner-several questions, different categories, playing in teams etc. One of the questions asked about a country, to which the response came 'Africa'. If I had a pound for the amount of times I've heard Africa referred to as a country, I'd be a rich man, but I'm not downplaying that I am more ignorant about the continent than I would like to be. One of the things I'll be doing at school this year is working on establishing an African link school. We have already contacted some organisations, and are hopeful of a Malawi link being in place with some structured curricular support as part of the package . I'm really looking forward to the partnership, and hope it will be rewarding for pupils to share experiences.

I'm taking this opportunity to talk about Africa, as it will surface in a lot of the work we'll cover in classes this year too. We have spent some time talking about Sub Saharan Africa with Higher. There is so much going on here just now-some of you may be aware of recent events in Kenya-that I think it's worth trying to keep in touch with news here. I'll try to establish over the next few days why African countries are significantly behind their South East Asian counterparts on the Development curve. It's also worth checking The Higher Geog Blog, use the labels to find your topic. Lots of Development related news items that I have used in class in the past have first been sourced from here. We'll also see, tomorrow I think, probably the most bizarre mobile phone advert your ever likely to...