大学生のアフリカ諸国に対する意識調査 : ICUにおける「発展途上国における教育」の授業実践より

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In the field of international aid and cooperation, particularly after 1980s, Africa has been attracting a world-wide attention, whereas our general attitudes towards Africa, with few exceptions, seem to be rather negligible and our knowledge on Africa limited or biased. University students in Japan, in this respect, are no exception. How many of them know how much of African nations, races, nature and cultures? On the other hand, we can find many problems in the attitudes of Japanese universities. Do they offer sufficient courses to meet the demands of the students interested in African studies? Are there any attempt by professors to present lectures on Africa? Unfortunately, the responses to these questions are all unfavorable ones. The present authors, on the assumption that Japanese university students lack some basic knowledge on Africa and even may have some prejudices on the continent, would like to present a practical paper on how to raise awareness on Africa among the students in Japan by setting up special courses on Africa. PURPOSE Our research and studies took place in autumn term 1992 in the university course of 'Education in Developing Countries.' The main purposes of the research can be summarized in the following two points: 1. Our hypothesis is: limited knowledge and lack of awareness on Africa among Japanese students can be improved through lectures focused on the realistic problems of African countries. We have set our first and foremost objective to check the validity of this hypothesis in the practices of special course on African education. 2. Our second purpose to prepare a course syllabus on education in Africa as one of prototypes. It is quite difficult in Japan to prepare courses on the theme because of the lack of reference sources and rare resource persons. However, the syllabus was made in the hope that it would be one of the prototype courses for prospective lectures who intend to present in similar course and that in the long run it would make some contribution to the field of international aid and cooperation. METHOD As data sources, we have used two reports, two kinds of class-room survey and evaluation sheets by the students. We have conducted two forms of class-room survey. One is a general questionnaire on Africa presented to the students in the class on the first day of the course. We also asked them to fill out the revised version on the last day of the course. Another form is also a questionnaire on Africa but with a map of the continent. The students were supposed to write down all the names of the capitals and the nations on appropriate places. This too was given twice on the second and last days of the course. Apart from our own questionnaires, 'evaluation sheets by the students' were also filled out. We have used them as one of our essential data sources. As a means of grading, Prof. Chiba required all the students to submit mid-term and final reports with the following conditions. Mid-term Report: Choose one of African countries, and pick up any interesting themes such as politics, economies, religions, societies or cultures of the country. Do some research, for example by visiting African embassies, and make reports on the themes you have chosen. Final Report: Present papers on education of the country which you have chosen for the mid-term report, describing its educational history, system or problems. RESULT As a conclusion, it has been quite clearly proved that, in short-term vision, our before-mentioned hypothesis has high validity: that is, limited knowledge and lack of awareness of the Japanese university students on Africa can be improved through appropriate procedures given by special courses on African education. Concerning the accumulation of the knowledge on Africa, clear improvement was indicated from various data. Also, it can be said that, through the course lectures, some of the students have become aware of the strong need for international aid and cooperation between African countries and Japan, and have shown interest to work in this field in future. We have also attempted to make a course syllabus to raise awareness on Africa among the students. However, the aim of our presentation of the syllabus is not to make a fixed syllabus as a 'model.' It is rather shown as a a 'hint' in order to encourage the increasing offer of lecture courses on African education.

大学生のアフリカ諸国に対する意識調査 : ICUにおける「発展途上国における教育」の授業実践より

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