Assessing ngoma-ness: a generic cross-cultural framework for African musical arts education

Abstract

This article focuses on teaching and learning contexts as well as assessment systems suited to African musical arts performance, but its findings are equally applicable beyond these contexts. Through the introduction of a generic evaluation system in the form of a re-contextualised authentic framework that is implementable outside its culture of origin, this study opens up the possibility for the development of other, similar generic global frameworks. What is illustrated here is a newly developed compatible and reliable framework that correlates an indigenous sub-Saharan African non-formal music education system with a global and formal music education. This framework is informed by Western and indigenous African philosophies, a synthesis of social and educational studies, as well as an exploration of the musical arts in sub-Saharan Africa through documentary research and deconstruction theory designs.