Reconstructing african philosophies of education: Historical and contemporary analyses

Abstract

The current context of African education is a complex one and carries itself with multiple historic-cultural learning and teaching parcels that need to be analytically excavated and understood. For my intentions in this chapter, one major problem with actual platforms of African education is the absence of policy and/or curriculum-sanctioned Indigenous philosophical foundations that should guide the conceptual, theoretical, and practical constructions and operationalizations of such education. The reason should not be difficult to comprehend as current African systems of education are, in toto, adopted from colonial systems of schooling that, with counter-African interests and needs, actually formed the vanguard of thick psycho-cultural colonization schemes that denied and from there, deliberately destroyed African traditional ways of learning and teaching (Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Howard University Press, Washington, DC, 1982; Abdi in African and Asian Studies 12 (1-2), 64-82, 2013). And with no viable policy or knowledge emphasis changes during the postcolonial period, this chapter focuses on analyzing and suggesting ways of reviving these important philosophical traditions for community-connected learning and for more inclusive social development possibilities.