Formal education was introduced to Africa
with the advent of European colonialism. The purported objective was to build
capacity, advance skills and competencies, and widen the knowledge base of native
Africans to enable them adeptly partake in and own development processes in
their communities. During the colonial period, education focus was put on
governance and administration, education, theology, medicine, law, agricultures,
and technical education as the key pillars of development.
Years after independence, this
Eurocentric education paradigm has not changed much. The content (what is taught) and pedagogy
(how students are taught) has remained the same - Western. Attempts to to
de-colonize the African academy are yet to yield recognizable results. Ali A.
Mazrui, captures this well by when he posits thus: “Western
influence is expressed through another African institution— the university.
The university is an analogue to a multinational corporation:
born as an extension of a metropolitan university whose direction and
instructions come from a European country, the African university continues to
serve other than African interests. African educational institutions
help produce Westernized or semi-Westernized manpower for the commercial firms
and Western values and tastes, thus expanding a culturally-relevant market for
Western goods.” The situation that Mazrui alludes to is also detectable
at pre-primary, primary, secondary and other tertiary levels of education.
The school has remained alien to
the indigenous African experience. I remember facing this dilemma when I was
attending school in rural Uganda. What I was taught at school was remotely
linked to the daily experiences that I interacted with at home and in my
community. The school curriculum never encompassed local music, dances,
folklore, theology, cultural and social values, technology, games and sports,
oral literature, history, language, art, and practical skills of production in areas
such as agriculture, cottage industries, mining, etc. Instead, emphasis was
laid on Western history, theology, geography, civilization, politics, and
economics, to mention but the most obvious. Sadly, the curriculum is still the
same.
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| Students attending a class in one of the schools in Uganda |
One of the key areas in which the
African academy is clearly delinked from the native knowledge bases and
structures is the languages used as medium if communication. The medium of
information delivery in schools in Francophone and Anglophone countries is
French and English, respectively. One might argue that application of these
languages has facilitated the integration of the African academy in the global
education system, but as Ngugi Wa Thiogo has noted, ‘we (African people) still
collect intellectual items and put them in European language museums and
archives and people have to dig into those languages in order to access
knowledge about ourselves. Our knowledge of Africa is largely filtered through
European languages and their vocabulary. Is it not time that our scholarship stopped
finding legitimacy in European languages…?’ This intellectual enslavement through
languages and other forms has undermined capacity by native people to develop
local knowledge.
Suffice it to note that the process of learning leads to a
process of unlearning. Since language
influences interpretation, generation, dissection, development, survival,
dissemination and application of knowledge, the western paradigm of education
(that centers around western content, pedagogy, and languages) on which the African
academy is founded has disengaged the African teacher, student, scholar,
academic, and researcher from the African realities. To this end, African
knowledge, actualities, and experiences are lost in translation as a result of
learning and teaching through the lens of European education and literary
prototype.
Consequently, the African education
system has produced graduates who cannot suitably serve in their own social,
cultural, political and economic environments and contexts. This alienation of
the African graduate from his/her local existential realities has rendered western
formal education less effective in terms of generating relevant human resources
to solve local challenges.
Developing local knowledge will increase
Africa’s comparative advantage in the global market. This can only be achieved
if there is change in the education criteria, introduce narratives that will
exude the indigenous experience and knowledge structures and mechanisms, and
stimulate locally oriented productivity. This shift should begin with Africans
reclaiming confidence in their own indigenous knowledge and its ability to
transform their lives locally.
This tale should prompt a shift in
intellectual thinking, and education paradigm and approach. New pedagogic
models need to be developed to facilitate a process that would equip graduates
with skills, knowledge and competences that are responsive to local conditions
and needs. The African academy is yearning for African identity; it needs to be
de-Europeanized. Stakeholders such as teachers, policy makers, civil society
organizations, local leaders, education administrators, school inspectors,
students and curriculum developers need to engage in discourses to identify and
draw a roadmap aimed at indigenization process of the academy. This paradigm
shift in education system will render formal education much more relevant to
the local realities, environment, needs and conditions.
