UBUNTUGOGY: AN AFRICAN EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM THAT TRANSCENDS PEDAGOGY, ANDRAGOGY, ERGONAGY AND HEUTAGOGY

After almost three centuries of employing Western educational approaches, many African societies are still characterized by low Western literacy rates, civil conflicts and underdevelopment. It is obvious that these Western educational paradigms, which are not indigenous to Africans, have done relatively little good for Africans. Thus, I argue in this paper that the salvation for Africans hinges upon employing indigenous African educational paradigms which can be subsumed under the rubric of ubuntugogy, which I define as the art and science of teaching and learning undergirded by humanity towards others. Therefore, ubuntugogy transcends pedagogy (the art and science of teaching), andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn), ergonagy (the art and science of helping people learn to work), and heutagogy (the study of self-determined learning).

INTRODUCTION

Many great African minds, realizing the debilitating effects of the Western educational systems that have been forced upon Africans, have called for different approaches. The following is a sample of excerpts from some of these great Africans.

Sékou Touré:

We must Africanize our education and get rid of the negative features and misconceptions inherited from an educational system designed to serve colonial purposes. We should also promote an education that will acquaint children with real life-not only by giving them a vocational training, but by closely relating school with life. Life, indeed, is the true school, and our schools, whether of general education or vocational training, should be auxiliaries of life.1

Emperor Haile Selassie:

A fundamental objective of the university (i.e. Haile Selassie I University) must be to safeguarding and the developing of the culture of the people it serves. This university is a product of that culture; it is a community of those capable of understanding and using the accumulated heritage of the Ethiopian people. In this university men and women will work together to study the wellsprings of our culture, trace its development, and mold its future. What enables us today to open a university of such a standard is the wealth of literature and learning now extinct elsewhere in the world which through hard work and perseverance our forefathers have preserved for us.2

Julius K. Nyerere:

Our first step, therefore, must be to re-educate ourselves; to regain our former attitude of mind. In our traditional African society we are individuals within a community. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us. We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellowmen.3

Kwame Nkrumah:

Intelligentsia and intellectuals, if they are to play a part in the African Revolution, must become conscious of the class struggle in Africa, and align themselves with the oppressed masses. This involves the difficult, but not impossible, task of cutting themselves free from bourgeois attitudes and ideologies imbibed as a result of colonialist education and propaganda.4

Amilcar Cabral:

On the level of education and culture (three of the seven points): 3. Total elimination of the complexes created by colonialism, and of the consequences of colonialist culture and exploitation. 4. In Guinea development of autochthonous languages and of the Creole dialect, creation of a written form for these languages. In Cabo Verde development of the cultures of the various ethnic groups and of the Cabo Verde people. Protection and development of national literature and arts. 5. Utilisation of all the values and advances of human and universal culture in the service of the progress of the peoples of Guinea and Cabo Verde. Contribution by the culture of these peoples to the progress of humanity in general.5

Ngugi wa Thiong'o:

As you know, the colonial system of education in addition to its apartheid racial demarcation had the structure of a pyramid: a broad primary base, a narrowing secondary middle, and an even narrower university apex....Language and literature were taking us further and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds....The call for the rediscovery and the resumption of our language is a call for a regenerative reconnection with the millions of revolutionary tongues in Africa and the world over demanding liberation. It is a call for the rediscovery of the real language of humankind: the language of struggle. It is the universal language underlying all speech and words of our history. Struggle. Struggle makes history. Struggle makes us. In struggle is our history, our language and our being.6

Marcus Garvey:

But when we come to consider the history of man, was not the Negro a power, was he not great once? Yes, honest students of history can recall the day when Egypt, Ethiopia, and Timbuktu towered in their civilizations, towered above Europe, towered above Asia. When Europe was inhabited by a race of cannibals, a race of savaged, naked men, heathens, and pagans, Africa was peopled with a race of cultured black men, who were masters in art, science, and literature; men who were cultured and refined; men who, it was said, were like the gods. Even the great poets of old sang in beautiful sonnets of the delight it afforded the gods to be in companionship with the Ethiopians. Why, then, should we lose hope? Black men, you were once great; you shall be great again. Lose not courage, lose not faith, go forward. The thing to do is to get organized; keep separated and you will be exploited, you will be robbed, you will be killed. Get organized, and you will compel the world to respect you.7