Interaction between University African Studies Departments and African Studies in schools has never been more necessary than at the present time. The current standing of African Studies in the UK is largely a1 monument to the enterprising young academics of the 1950s and 60s who, fired with an enthusiasm born in the heady days of African Independence Movements and decolonisation, risked their academic careers on Africa. They challenged the academic establishments of universities in this country, and to an amazing extent secured funding to establish specialist centres which then proceeded to justify themselves by an explosion of new ideas about Africa.

But the passage of time takes its toll and at the last ASAUK conference I was very conscious of this.

The majority of secondary schools in the inner London area still offer their pupils what may be described as a ‘traditional’ history course in the lower school. This course begins with cavemen and usually ends with the Hanoverians. Pupils are taught about the “Great Civilisations” of Egypt, Greece and Rome, about the various invaders who came to these Islands such as the Romans, Vikings and Normans. This course is still firmly entrenched in our schools and most history departments in the London area are reluctant to alter their syllabi.

Part of the explanation for this reluctance is resistance by classroom teachers to other areas of study. Mast of our teachers were themselves taught this traditional course and cannot honestly see any reason for changing what they teach. After all, if it was good enough for them why shouldn't it be good enough for their pupils?

My own experience in this country, as a writing historian drawn occasionally into teaching or at any rate lecturing, is that African studies have so far failed to make any significant mark, or indeed any mark at all, on the general run of teaching and of syllabus in post-primary schools (and, of course, clearly none at all in primary schools). There are some exceptions in so-called multi-ethnic schools in London (and occasionally in other large cities) where a devoted though very small band of teachers - initially led by the late and much lamented Ken Forge - did succeed in the early 1970s in introducing and persevering with what were generally known as “Black Studies”; however, such exceptions were few indeed.

I am not sure how far such “courses” still exist, but the general position has certainly improved in ofle important respect, though again of very limited range.

If anyone asks us why we believe more citizens of Britain should have their awareness of Africa increased, what do we answer? Or do we simply say that African Studies is a good intellectual discipline, with no more immediate practical relevance than Latin or Astronomy?

My own belief is that we need a rationale if we are to move into greater activity in the dissemination of knowledge about Africa among the community, and that there are valid rationales to hand. For one, Britain has important economic relationships with various parts of the African continent (Nigeria now being a major trading partner of this country, for instance). For another, even if we don't see Brandt as a full or satisfactory statement, its analysis does underline the complex inter-relationship between us and the Third World. For a third, “what do tney know of England who only England know?” - i.e. it's necessary to understand other cultures in order to become conscious of one's own. For a fourth, the study of Africa is exciting in itself.

Within British educational publishers the provision of textbooks for schools, colleges and universities in Africa is an important area of publishing activity. The Africa and Caribbean Division of Longman, for example, publishes about 100 new books each year, and educational publishing houses such as Heinemann, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Nelson and Evans, also produce significant numbers of new titles annually. Most of the books produced by these publishers are school books, designed to suit local syllabuses and educational requirements and written mainly by local specialists. African publishing is nowadays undertaken in close partnership with subsidiary and associated publishing houses in the. Anglophone countries of Africa. Currently Nigeria represents the largest single market for British educational publishers in Africa, followed by countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe.

The aim of the “Current Bibliography of the Savanna States of Nigeria” is to provide a guide to publications and theses on the country's-ten northern states. It appears as a regular feature in Savanna; the semi-annual journal concentrating on Nigeria's northern savanna which was launched at Ahmadu Bello University in 1972. The inclusion of a current bibliography was the idea of Geoffrey J. Williams, one of the two geographers who planned the journal. Dr. Williams compiled the bibliography oh his own up to 1974, when he left Nigeria to take up a professorship at the University of Zambia. He collaborated with John A. Achema (then one of the university library staff) in 1975 and 1976, with myself in 1977, and then stopped because of the difficulties of carrying out such work in Zambia.

The Centro de Estudos Africanos (Centre of African Studies - henceforth CEA) was founded soon after Mozambique's independence in June 1975. It was set up under the directorship of Aquino de Bragança, who was formerly Secretary to the Conference of Nationalist Organisations in the Portuguese Colonies, that linked together all the lusophone liberation movements during the anti-colonial struggle. From its inception the C.E.A. had two high priorities - a committment to collective research and to studies vhich would te relevant to the needs of Mozambique in its attempt to build a socialist society. The latter was not seen simply in narrow nationalistic terms, but was placed firmly within the regional context. Hence, the first major study carried out was on the political economy of Zimbabwe as a background document to the Geneva talks of 1976.

The National Archives of Malawi was established in January 1964, but Malawi has served as an archives depot since 1947, within the framework of the political unity of the three Central African territories of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi, then known as Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland respectively. This unity was promoted into the so-called Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953. The Federation lasted only one decade following the secession from it of, first, Nyasaland, then Northern Rhodesia.

The Southern Rhodesia National Archives Act was promulgated in 1935. In 1946, an Archives Amendment Act was passed, authorizing the Government Archivist of Southern Rhodesia to extend his powers to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Act was followed by the Nyasaland Archives Ordinance 1946, which was but a complementary legislation empowering the Southern Rhodesia National Archives (now known as the Central Africa Archives) to act as the archives office for Nyasaland.

The University of Sokoto is one of the seven new Universities that the Federal Military Government established in September 1975. The other six new Universities that were established simultaneously with Sokoto are the Universities of Bayero, Calabar, Ilorin, Jos, Maiduguri and Port Harcourt. The Universities of Calabar, Jos and Ilorin had existed earlier as University Colleges of the older universities of Nigeria, Nsukka and Ibadan respectively. Bayero University had also existed as a Campus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. By the time these four institutions were transformed into full-fledged Universities in September 1975, each one of them had been in existence for not less than three years. Of the remaining three new Universities, Maiduguri inherited the campus of the North-East College of Arts and Science but Port Harcourt and Sokoto started completely from scratch. They inherited nothing by way of building, the nucleus of a library or any other infrastructure.