Abstract
In this final chapter, I take up one of the most menacing problems confronting Africa in our time: the curriculum problem. The curriculum of education in Africa has two fundamental problems namely; it is colonial and thus stifles creative originality of a child, and it is fitted with alien background logic which estranges and condemns its victim to a life time of imitation. To transform this colonial curriculum and construct a new one on the basis of African logic thus becomes the most urgent task which is the focus of this chapter. I will formulate a theory of curriculum transformation in Africa based on Ezumezu logic that utilises the twin strategies of decolonisation and Africanisation. I will argue that it is only a transformed curriculum that can, among others, develop critical and creative thinking abilities in the African child. Further, I will identify some objections that have been levelled against the effort to transform curriculum in Africa and address them.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See David Benatar (2015).
- 2.
See Xulela Mangcu (2015).
- 3.
See Mansoor Jaffer (2015).
- 4.
Unfortunately, internal politics has trapped the white paper generated by the committee at the faculty curriculum committee for nearly 5 years now. The committee that sits every month is yet to deliberate on the department of African philosophy proposal submitted to it in 2015 despite constant reminders from me. This programme was to be the first of its kind in the world to the best of knowledge and it was to serve as a model for others to copy from. A number of colleagues from elsewhere in Nigeria and beyond still ask me questions. This reminds us that colonialism may have done great evils to Africa but the havoc which the postcolonial mindset is doing to Africa might be worse.
- 5.
See Kant on History . Lewis White Beck ed. P. 24. Quoted in Tsenay Serequeberhan (1991: 6).
- 6.
See Richard Popkin. 1977–1978. Hume’s racism . 213.
- 7.
See Kant on History . Lewis White Beck ed. P. 24. Quoted in Tsenay Serequeberhan (1991: 6).
- 8.
See Tempels Placid (1959).
- 9.
See Innocent Asouzu (2004).
- 10.
See for example the debate between Heinz Kimmerle and Jurgen Hengelbrock where it was claimed that African philosophy lacked originality, www.galerie-inter.de/kimmerle. See also the preface Kimmerle wrote for Sophie Oluwole’s book (1989) where according to Innocent Asouzu (2007: 32), Kimmerle could not resist the temptation of pointing out that all the issues raised by Oluwole were already exhausted in European philosophy.
- 11.
See “Traditional Brain Surgeries.” https://oddafrica.com/category/healing/ Retrieved October 15, 2018.
References
Asouzu, I. Innocent. 2004. The method and principles of complementary reflection in and beyond African philosophy. Calabar: University of Calabar Press.
———. 2007. Ibuaru: The heavy burden of philosophy beyond African philosophy. Zurich: Lit Verlag GmbH/Co. Kg Wien.
Barker, J. Anthony. 1978. The African link: British attitudes to the Negro in the era of the Atlantic slave trade, 1550–1807. London: Cass.
Beck, W. Lewis, ed. Kant on History. Quoted in Serequeberhan, Tsenay. 1991. African philosophy: The point in question. In African philosophy: The essential reading, ed. Tsenay Serequeberhan, 3–28. New York: Paragon House.
Benatar, David. 2015. Those who seek changes must show they are desirable. Cape Times https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/opinion/those-who-seek-changes-must-show-they-are-desirable-1886695 . Retrieved 2 Sept 2018.
Chimakonam, Jonathan O. 2016. Can the philosophy curriculum be Africanised? An examination of the prospects and challenges of some models of Africanisation. South African Journal of Philosophy 35 (4): 513–522. https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2016.1245553.
———. 2017. African philosophy and global epistemic injustice. Journal of Global Ethics 13 (2): 120–137.
———. 2018. Addressing the epistemic marginalization of women in African philosophy and building a culture of conversations. In African philosophy and the epistemic marginalization of women, ed. Jonathan Chimakonam. London: Routledge.
Chimakonam, Jonathan O., and C.A. Victor Nweke. 2018. Why the ‘Politics’ against African philosophy should be discontinued. Dialogue 57 (2): 277–301. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217317000907.
Fauvel, John, and Paulus Gerdes. 1990. African slave and calculating prodigy: Bicentenary of the death of Thomas Fuller. Historia Mathematica 17: 141–151.
Gilley, Bruce. 2017. The case for colonialism. Third World Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1369037. Retracted.
Goldhill, Olivia. 2018. Philosophy is the new battleground in South Africa’s fight against colonialism. Quartz. https://qz.com/1332351/philosophy-is-the-new-battleground-in-south-africas-fight-against-colonialism/. Retrieved 2 Sept 2018.
Hegel, W. F. Georg. 1975. Lectures on the philosophy of world history. Trans. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hengelbrock, Jurgen. You cannot free yourself from Hegel: An encounter with Heinz Kimmerle. Intercultural communication. www.galerie-inter.de/kimmerle. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
Hume, David. 1741–1742. Of national characters, Essay XX. In Essays, literary, moral, and political. London: Ward, Locke and Tyler, n.d.
Jaffer, Mansoor. 2015. Mangcu has a point, Professor Benatar. Cape Times. https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/opinion/mangcu-has-a-point-professor-benatar-1882510. Retrieved 2 Sept 2018.
Kant, Immanuel. 1960. Observations on the feeling of the beautiful and sublime. Trans. John T. Goldthwait, Berkely: University of California Press.
Kimmerle, Heinz. The stranger between oppression and superiority. www.galerie-inter.de/kimmerle. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
King, Ritchie. 2014. It’s surprisingly easy to get a fake study published in an academic journal. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/its-surprisingly-easy-get-fake-study-published-academic-journal/357006/?utm_source=feed. Retrieved 6 Sept 2018.
Lindsay, James, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian. 2018. What an Audacious Hoax reveals about academia. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/. Retrieved 6 Sept 2018.
Oluwole, B. Sophie, ed. 1989. Readings in African philosophy. Lagos: Masstech Publications.
Popkin, Richard. 1978. Hume’s racism. The Philosophical Forum 9 (2–3): 213–218.
Rush, Benjamin. 1789. Account of a wonderful talent for arithmetical calculation, in an African slave, living in Virginia. In The American museum: Or repository of ancient and modern fugitive pieces, prose and poetical, ed. Mathew Carey, vol. vol. v, 62–63. Philadelphia: Mathew Carey.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2016. Epistemologies of the south: Justice against epistemicide. New York: Routledge.
Tempels, Placid. 1959. Bantu Philosophy. Paris: Presence Africaine.
Xulela, Mangcu. 2015. Racially offensive diatribe has no place. Cape Times. https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/opinion/racially-offensive-diatribe-has-no-place-1879582. Retrieved, 2 Sept 2018.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chimakonam, J.O. (2019). Decolonisation, Africanisation and Transformation: Why We Need ‘That’ African Contribution to World History and Civilisation. In: Ezumezu. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11075-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11075-8_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11074-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11075-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)