This handbook is an attempt at de-Kutiwa-kasumbalisation of Education in the African context. The overarching point de depart is that Education predated schooling, that it is a lot broader and deeper than schooling, and that its primary purpose is intergenerational transmission of cultural heritage. Africa happens to be the only region of the world where all the role models to which its children in their formative years are exposed (angels and saints, great achievers, film stars, etc) are of a race that is different from theirs. African children are the only ones in the world whose socialisation begins with acculturation (learning about other worlds in a foreign language), instead of beginning with enculturation (being deeply entrenched into your own world first and foremost). African children are the only ones whose region is most lowly represented in international organizations, including the UN agencies, and about whom decisions for their situation and well-being are often taken without even token voices from their people’s representatives.
Handbook of African Educational Theories and Practices: A Generative Teacher Education Curriculum
This monumental piece of work – covering nine thematic sections in thirtysix intellectually heavy weight chapters, mobilising forty-four contributors from sixteen different countries – breaks new ground in its efforts to address the challenge of kutiwa kasumba that has been Africa’s burden since the colonisation of the continent and since its assimilation of western education. Kutiwa kasumba is a Kiswahili term that can best be translated as ‘brainwashing’. It was manifest in the doctrine that pretended that Africa had no history prior to its contact with western explorers. The doctrine also pretended that Education meant simply schooling and was therefore synonymous with education western-style, western values and western content.
Published Nov. 1, 2011 1:19 PM
- Last modified Apr. 17, 2013 4:39 PM