The Study On European Union’s Evolutionary Development Assistance For Education Policy In Africa

The Africa has been inextricably linked to the European since the colonial period, with the most amounts of developing countries in the world, which is lagging behind the European in economic, political and cultural fields. They have formed a solid system of assistance in modern history, especially under the colonial relationship.European Union’s development assistance for education in Africa temporally has been divided into four stages.The first stage is that the suzerain countries have formulated assistant policies in there colonization during the colonial period, with few policies for educational development except for some African countries enriched themselves by education. To the European countries, they dispatched missionaries who set up schools and developed their higher education in the colonies for the dissemination of culture. During the anti-colonial period, African countries, even if these countries had gained independence, still can not do without European countries’ aid policies.The second stage has institutionalized from the phase of Yaounde Agreement to the Lome Convention and then the Cotonou Agreement. European Communities has collectively implemented the assistance in Africa with its integration, changing the individually way to aid by countries for countries.The European Union has placed a greater emphasis on the development assistance for education in Africa after its establishment, echoed with the system of the international foreign aid. The mode that EU implement assistance to Africa is dominated by bilateral aid, tying in multilateral aid; hence members of EU, which are on behalf of it, aid to Africa is significant when it is researched in the education policy. European Union becomes more mature and it is a relatively complete education policy system, which coordinates with MDGs and EFA Movement. European Union has set up the budget support and the Court that sponsored and assessed EU assistance. The assistant system becomes more reliable with its the longest history and widest range from EU.When African Union has been established, it is the cooperation framework that EU and AU have respected the form of cooperative education policy instead of aid. They advocate "2 Union 1 Vision"and convene periodic summit for the Africa-EU Partnership, which successfully have been held four summits, formulating some files such as Joint Africa EU Strategy and the Second Decade of Educational Action Plan in Africa (2006-2015).The evolutionary of EU development assistance for education in Africa pays more attention to the cooperation and communication in the future, with the long duration and wide range. The education policy, which initiating educational equity, inter-school cooperation and cooperation in higher education, etc., can be some experienced examples with some reference and enlightenment function for those who will aid for Africa in the 21st century, such as China’s educational aid.