African Education in the Twenty-first Century : Challenge for Change

This exploratory paper reviews African development in general and education in particular, and argues that many problems that bedevil Africa today, have their origins in the colonial period. Colonisation, it is noted, was not a developmental process, but a mechanism of exploitation. As a result, colonial education was designed and implemented to serve the needs of the colonial state, which was to produce a low level educated cadre of the labour force to facilitate economic production. It is in this regard that it placed no premium on promoting advanced professions for Africans. African independence, it is further argued, failed to alter the colonial economic structures, with their educational systems continuing along the Western models and paradigms that have little relevance to African development. The African governments' failure to reconstruct their education to respond to their immediate problems has been compounded by their heavy reliance on technical assistance, which by and large has shaped their educational agenda with little or no impact at all on development. In many parts of the continent, it is now apparent that the initial gains made following decolonisation have disappeared, resulting in economic stagnation, and in some cases disintegration through civil strife.

The paper, therefore suggests that as the African continent moves into the twenty first century, African countries should take control of their destiny and pursue the kind of development which is endogenous to their settings. Structured international packages should be resisted in favour of international cooperation that responds to their own designed development strategies. Education should take the lead in the new transformation, with programmes that totally break with the past mechanisms of knowledge and skill acquisition. Such programmes should place emphasis on knowledge, skills and values that are based on the African environment in which the learners will live and work. Education should also spearhead critical thinking and emancipation of the communities from forces of domination and exploitation.