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International Review of Education

, Volume 62, Issue 1, pp 11–27 | Cite as

Evolving African attitudes to European education: Resistance, pervert effects of the single system paradox, and the ubuntu framework for renewal

  • N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

This paper is a reflection that critically examines the dynamics of education and the struggle by African people for freedom, control of the mind, self-definition and the right to determine their own destiny from the start of colonial rule to the present. The primary methodological approach is historical structuralism, which stipulates that social reality and facts are determined and created by social agents within structural and historical contingencies. It addresses some of the most powerful challenges and contradictions that explain the ineffectiveness of numerous post-independence reforms, and presents the arguments for relevance and use of African languages, for instance, that have been made since the 1960s. The first section of the paper deals with the colonial imperatives for setting new education systems in the colonised societies of Africa and the initial attitudes of the Africans towards colonial education. The second section critically examines the evolving meanings of Western education in Europeanising African societies, the articulation of their rationale and the mechanism for resistance. It analyses the turning point when Africans began to embrace European education and demand it in the colonial and post-independence era. The third section addresses the roots of the inadequacies of received post-colonial education and the imperative of deconstruction and re-appropriation of African education using an ubuntu framework for an African renewal.

Keywords

Africa Colonial education Cultural roots Ubuntu 

Résumé

Évolution des attitudes africaines vis-à-vis de l’éducation européenne : résistance, effets pervers du paradoxe d’un système unique et ubuntu comme cadre de renouveau. Cet article constitue une réflexion critique sur la dynamique éducative et la lutte des Africains pour leur liberté, y compris leur liberté de pensée, la possibilité de s’auto-définir et le droit de contrôler leur propre destin des débuts du colonialisme à nos jours. L’approche méthodologique primaire utilisée se fonde sur le structuralisme historique qui affirme que la réalité sociale et les faits sont déterminés et créés par des agents sociaux au sein de contingences structurelles et historiques. Elle aborde quelques-unes des problématiques et contradictions les plus marquées qui expliquent le manque d’efficience de nombreuses réformes postérieures à l’indépendance et expose les arguments avancés, par exemple, en faveur de la pertinence et de l’utilisation des langues africaines depuis les années 1960. La première partie de l’article examine les impératifs qui ont guidé les colonisateurs dans la mise en place de nouveaux systèmes éducatifs au sein des sociétés africaines colonisées et les comportements que les Africains ont adoptés à l’égard de ces systèmes. La deuxième partie soumet à une analyse critique l’évolution des implications de l’éducation occidentale dans ses efforts d’européaniser les sociétés africaines, l’articulation des logiques qui les sous-tendaient et les mécanismes de résistance. En outre, elle examine le tournant qu’a marqué le début de l’acceptation par les Africains de l’éducation européenne et leur demande de recevoir une telle éducation pendant l’époque coloniale et après l’indépendance. La troisième partie traite de l’inadéquation de l’éducation postcoloniale qui est dispensée et de la nécessité de déconstruire l’actuel système éducatif africain pour se le réapproprier en utilisant l’ubuntu comme cadre d’un renouveau africain.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Cornell University, Africana Studies and Research CenterIthacaUSA

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