The world has changed dramatically over time. Trends come and go. How things are done changes considerably. People adopt new ways of doing things and if such works, people stick with it. If it does not work, people are quick to abandon such. Qualitative changes, quantitative changes, and all. As pronounced through dialectical and historical materialism. (Karl Marx)
The nature of education in Africa has increasingly become a cause for concern. Education in Africa, when it was brought by the colonizers, was specially designed to alienate the African from his identity and immediate surroundings. The African was compelled to abhor everything African, to view everything African as extremely backward and barbaric.
The education system brought by the colonizers to Africa
under the veil of “civilization” was created to make sure that the African did
not have a questioning sensibility regarding his own world and how he perceived
that world. It was education designed for Africans to mimic (it is still mostly
like this).
Policies like assimilation that was favoured by the French
colonizers were meant to force the African to be European, so that he hated his
own identity. So that by enjoying the luxuries that came with European
education the African would be divorced from his most pressing and immediate
context.
Social mobility and social capital were determined by how
much colonial education one had imbibed. In a way, the same colonial education
also gave rise to Africa’s revered, iconic and fearless nationalist leaders
such as Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Leopold Senghor, Robert Mugabe, Nelson
Mandela and many others. The educated nationalists went on to lead the
struggles for independence for their countries on the basis of this education,
which was mostly attainable through the benevolence of mission schools.
(Together with the associated biases for those who eschewed the nationalist
path).
When African countries attained their independence, major
reforms were implemented in education to ensure that it reflected what was
necessary in the African society. And to make it widely accessible to the
majority of Africans. Through a people-centred approach. Education was improved
so that it spoke to the African. But these reforms were not adequate as
education systems across Africa, and the whole world at large, still emphasize
the super-imposing need for academic excellence (being good at producing
results only and not truly assessing whether the education acquired is vital
for real-life skills and emotional intelligence) and nothing else.
Because of the emphasis on academic results as the sole
factor determining the brilliance of students, education is biased. Students
are forced to load information in their heads for the sole purposes of passing
exams only and not for acquiring the relevant information needed to navigate
the rough terrains of life in a cold, capitalist world.
People now conform to whatever that is put in front of them
because the only urgent need apparent to them as they perceive the education
system is to get academic results with flying colours.
And to use that education as a means to acquire as much
private property as possible, particularly in the urban areas. Degrees are
relevant as far as they give one a chance to upgrade their class – the aspirational
middle class and the bourgeoisie.
The aspirations to acquire an education so that we can mimic
what is done in the global north and east without paying attention to our local
immediate context are counter-productive. Our education should speak more to
African cities, towns, and rural areas in an inclusive way.
Yes, good academic results mirror brilliance and the zeal of
students as regards excellence in life. But the focus on academic results has
turned overwhelmingly unsustainable for overall organic national development.
What happens to the brilliant child good who is excellent in
athletics? What happens to the student who excels in music? The one who is
amazingly super in football? These factors then reveal the skewed nature of an
over-emphasis on academic results only.
Academic results force people to load information without
properly processing its meaning and relevance to the world they live in.
Education should help people to develop a questioning
sensibility. It should enable people to be empowered, to demand more. Education
should be fashioned in a way that fosters emotional intelligence and how to
better understand oneself, and the people in the world one lives in. These
factors should be the crowning points of education systems in Africa.
In our local African contexts, the education should reflect
more of our history in detail, as well as explaining the relations between
African and global capital since the advent of imperialism in an objective manner.
We should depart from education that is narrow in nature.
Education should be broad. People must not just conform but must be empowered
with education.
Because education is not just about academic results.
Education should prepare people to appreciate what life is, the history in the
world from an objective point of view, and to develop their skills in various
areas of life. Emotional intelligence creates people who perceive the world
better. As well as education grounded in robust Pan-African oriented
approaches.
So, as the debates about opening schools in these pandemic times,
policy makers should have this in mind – that education must empower people in
a way that inspires them to find collective solutions for their communities and
countries at large.
Education in Africa must foster a sense of an organic
collective national consciousness that helps us counter the ideological
hegemony of global capital (the north and east). So that we have organic,
homegrown solutions in Africa. In this way, progress will be inclusive and not
based on class. And not to copy everything that global capital throws at us
without ideologically questioning such solutions.
Education should be not for conformity but for empowerment.
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