A Faulty Foundation: Historical Origins of Formal Education Curriculum in Africa

Ezeanya-Esiobu, Chika

doi:10.1007/978-981-13-6635-2_3

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Being educated is increasingly being equated with possessing degree certificates. But it has now been widely established that contrary to the widespread belief that they were absent, formal and informal education were actively present in Africa prior to the arrival of colonialism (Ezeanya-Esiobu, 2019;Mosweunyane, 2013). Writing on the specific case of Nigeria, Taiwo notes that:…”

Section: Colonial Mentality Within Learning Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combating colonial mentality within higher learning spaces: The case of sub-Saharan African universities

Balogun,

Woldegiorgis

2023

AJOTE

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As former colonies of Western imperial powers, virtually all aspects of African life have been invaded by forces of Western hegemony. Colonial mentality is the blind assimilation or internalisation of the colonial powers’ socio-cultural forms resulting in the destructive and disruptive abandonment of the ways of life of the colonies. As it applies to Africa, colonial mentality is a product of African cultural invasion in which, having been exposed to colonial experience for a long time, an average African has internalised foreign ideas and ideals—so much so that she has lost the authentic African ways of life in the process. Using philosophical methods of argumentation and critical engagements, this paper contends that a connection exists between colonial mentality and the observed failure of African universities to efficiently effectuate their relevance as Africa’s development partners. The paper identifies four key areas in which colonial mentality plays out most profoundly in African universities, namely, the nature of knowledge produced, the mode of certification, the language of instruction, and research funding. The paper argues that the incursion of colonial mentality in these vital areas continues to impede African universities’ capacity to substantively contribute to African development drives and aspirations. Given this close nexus, the paper maintains that African universities may never realise their potential as a critical sector in African development discourse. This qualitative research is based on critical inquiry through a process of identifying, questioning and assessing deeply held assumptions about Western hegemony. The paper concludes that decolonisation in learning spaces can only be a feasible project if it is accorded the seriousness that it deserves by all stakeholders both within and outside the university.

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Section: Colonial Mentality Within Learning Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combating colonial mentality within higher learning spaces: The case of sub-Saharan African universities

Balogun,

Woldegiorgis

2023

AJOTE

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“…Formal education is an institutionalized means of efficiently transmitting cultural traits 13-large part of their day, and much of their childhood and adolescence, in classrooms catching up on the last several thousand years of human progress, acquiring literacy, numeracy, ways of thinking, and discipline. The curricula of many formal education systems descend from and continue to be influenced by those developed in Western nations, often instituted during periods of European colonial rule [18][19][20][21] . Moreover, being highly educated also exposes people to cultural information through books and the Internet.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

More educated people are more WEIRD: Higher education predicts global cultural similarity to the United States and other WEIRD countries

White¹,

Muthukrishna²

2023

Preprint

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Behavioral scientists increasingly recruit participants from less-WEIRD societies, but continue to oversample highly educated people, such as university students and online workers. Here we test how representative highly educated individuals are of the world’s cultural diversity. We used the cultural fixation index (CFST) to measure cultural distance between high and low education groups in 91 countries (N=258,178), across beliefs, values, and behaviors assessed by the World Values Survey (2005–2022). We find that in 49 countries in the World Values Survey, more highly educated people are significantly more culturally similar to the United States. Education did not predict cultural similarities to other global superpowers (China, Russia, India), and other aspects of socioeconomic status (e.g., income) did not show the same patterns. Our results support the global spread of Western values through formal education, and suggest that cross-cultural samples of university-educated individuals underrepresent the world’s cultural variation.

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Theorising the Concept of Development Education from African Centred Perspective

Boateng

Kwapong

2022

Reimagining Development Education in Africa

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A Faulty Foundation: Historical Origins of Formal Education Curriculum in Africa

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

Combating colonial mentality within higher learning spaces: The case of sub-Saharan African universities

Combating colonial mentality within higher learning spaces: The case of sub-Saharan African universities

More educated people are more WEIRD: Higher education predicts global cultural similarity to the United States and other WEIRD countries

Theorising the Concept of Development Education from African Centred Perspective

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